A review by thesincoucher
Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers by Ryan O'Neill

5.0

This was an incredible read - as I'm an unashamed bookworm, it's difficult to resist a book about writers even if they are fake, specially in a book of such skill as this one. It was funny, sad and moving but it felt in general like a dark comedy. Most of the authors you will find here were jerks or were jerked around. As it's supposed to be a history of the Australian literary scene, it feels instinctually like the right note to take.

I loved that it was the whole book, with all the paratext, that was in on the joke, so to speak. I loved the section on Rachel and all of her input in the text (even the author photo!). I really loved that each mini-biography gave more information to the reader so they had a clear picture of the literary landscape that gave the impression that not even the "author" had. It was just a very clever, very funny book that I would recommend to everyone.