by Australian writer John Martin
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT THIS NOVEL:
Gem Bordages, United States
Once again John Martin creates an improbable world filled with improbable, but memorable, characters. Some you love and love loving; some you hate and love hating. The protagonist you love hating so much you can't wait to see what he does next so you can hate him even more.
Set in the wilds of the major's wife's dying estate in a small Australian village, Martin skillfully guides us through the outrageous schemes of a handsome, charming but loathsome, self-centered, self-promoting sociopath and his willing and not-so-willing victims. Major Billycock-Smythe fancies himself lord of the manor, but when fortune and overdue taxes thwart his ambitions, he launches a grandiose scheme to further his ambitions and save his wife's property for his own sake, and perhaps purchase a knighthood while he's at it.
The major's victims are as varied and interesting as the major himself. There's the clueless wife, whose real name he refuses to say, because it's too common; the long-suffering sergeant who thinks he owes his life to his superior officer; the dog, the pet snake, a gaggle of prominent executives who fall for his scheme; the Oobagoogu people he accidentally kidnaps, and a host of neighbors, villagers, government officials, ex-wives, abandoned children, and journalists he either manages to dupe or add to his long list of enemies.
The book ends in an most unsatifactory manner. You will love reading while you're reading it, but perhaps stomp on it when you're finished. Then you may pick it up and read it again. After that you probably will petition the author to write a sequel.
— Gem Bordages,
retired journalist
Galveston, Texas
Julian Burgess
FORMER Launceston
journalist John
Martin always had an
eye for an offbeat
story during his time at The
Examiner where he
produced many memorable
articles.
Now based in Canberra,
he has been turning his
writing talents to comic
novels.
His latest offering features
the adventures— although
misadventures is a more
accurate description— of
bumbling mercenary and
former British army officer
Major Jeremy Billycock-
Smythe.
Marriage number seven
sees the Major ensconced in
a large rural homestead on
the far outskirts of Canberra
where his new wife Molly is
trying to preserve some
remnant of her family’s
grand past in the Australian
grazing industry.
The Major’s ‘‘decorated’’
army career seems to have
ended under a cloud and his
activities in the private
sector have attracted a
certain notoriety with the
media.
Even the spooks in the
Australian diplomatic
service are taking an
interest in his often bizarre
activities, which include
illegal immigrants and
clandestine military
operations.
Numerous interesting,
odd and plain mad
characters are involved as
the Major tries to save his
career and his marriage.
There are even a couple
of Tasmanians.
This is a story that is sure
to amuse readers as it
draws on Martin’s
observations of reporters,
politicians, businessmen
and the military.
Since starting his
journalism cadetship at The
Examiner in 1976, Martin
has worked in various
capacities on newspapers in
Australia, PNG and
Micronesia.
He complied a daily
curiosity column while at
the Canberra Times and
now works on military
magazines in Canberra.
This book is being sold
through his website
(www.dunno.com.au) where
you’ll find more examples of his writing.
— Julian Burgess
The Examiner,
Tasmania,
28.11.09
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REVIEW OF APPLES BY BRUCE MORGAN IN THE EXAMINER, LAUNCESTON, 1994
John Martin is an enigma to many of his workmates on the basis that as a sub-editor, he is one of The Examiner’s finest writers. The enigma is that sub-editors don’t write, they correct the work of others.
So it is pleasing to note that APPLES confirms that Tasmania’s latest novelist is indeed a writer, a wordsmith as opposed to many of those around him who simply report on events.
Apples is a wonderfully humorous story about eccentrics. Knowing John Martin’s own brand of disarmingly-black humour, his characters could be nothing else.
The plot is centred on Windy Mountain, a fictional Northern Tasmanian town which is home to a wide cross-section of folk who represent (in spoofish proportions) Tasmania today. You will know some of them, if not by name, then certainly by character.
Windy Mountain is indeed windy, but where the mountain is seems less certain. Its population is a mixture of lifestyles, from commune-living greenies to redneck conservatives, with a pub which sells only apple cider and apple juice.
One of the principal characters is Les Happles - or "Apples" to his friends - who one night finds himself arrested for the curious Tasmanian offence or dressing as a woman "between the hours of sunset and sunrise."
The incident sets the pace for the introduction of a series of loosely-connected characters. There is the town drunk, a Catholic priest who is reconsidering his life with God, and the Mayor, a greedy megalomaniac whose orchard is home to a rare species of parrot which has the local greenies up in placards. He also wants to declare martial law over a "gang" of muttonbirds.
Meanwhile, there is Bruce Routley, the champion footballer and Tasmanian Tiger hunter whose mate is Foetus, a bikie who was waylaid in Windies Mountain years before and is still waiting for his gang to return.
While the greenies are embroiled in their own power-plays, one of Windy Mountain’s most popular pastimes is dancing at Tiger Kowalski’s Dancing School. It seems strange that so many unlikely candidates take to dancing, if that indeed is the school’s true vocation.
Windy Mountain also has its own newspaper, naturally, with an editor, Mr D.O.B. Leggs, whose own eccentricity extends to ordering reporters to find out where the wind comes from.
There are many more weird but endearing personalities who gradually thread together to - among other things - solve the great hospital sperm robbery, try to win Windy Mountain its first-ever footy premiership, save the apple orchard parrots from eco-unfriendly multi-nationals and find a thylacine (and save it too).
What stands out amid all these characters is that they have just that - character. You are able to picture them and their world, which is always the sign of a good storyteller.
There are some superfluous words in Apples - perhaps events and actions are at time over-explained - but this is well disguised by the abundant mixture of "funny ha-ha" and "funny peculiar".
Apples, apart from its eccentric characters, is also a comment on many issues, from Aborigines to conservation, and the author seems to have great fun in playing "devil’s advocate" with himself through their dialogue.
In the "industry" they say that inside every journalist there is a frustrated author trying to break out.
John Martin has just escaped.
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