OPINION
The collected Lushington D. Brady Vol. 1
Review
Let me start by coming clean. I am anything but an impartial reviewer. If there was a Lushington D. Brady Fan Club, I’d be a life member. I still remember the day I read his first column on what was then the Whaleoil blog. Up came this unusual but eminently believable name: “Lushington D. Brady”.
“Really?” I thought “What a great name” conjuring up a whole raft of weird and wonderful images in my mind. It had to be a pseudonym. Nobody gets a real name that’s so apt for a writer, and of course it is (a pseudonym); and a carefully thought-out one too, with a typically well-researched and thought-out history behind it which “Lushy” willingly explains in some detail in the front of this collection of his columns. The explanation itself stands out as an outstanding gem of his typical and beautiful prose as he outlines who the Lushington, the D. and the Brady actually were in the history of Tasmania. Reading this introduction to who Lushington D. Brady is, gave me flashbacks of the highly descriptive writing of the late Bryce Courtney in his book The Potato Factory.
The introduction to the self-described “Punk rock philosopher. Liberal contrarian. Grumpy old bastard” is an apt setting for this collection of columns that take us on a joy ride over recent events in the life of New Zealand and Australia and indeed the USA, the UK and Ukraine. Politics, current affairs, race, Covid, people, places, religion, climate change, blokes being women and women being blokes. Nothing is sacred and nobody is spared from the wit and sometimes acute but still fair lashings of the “Lushy” pen.
I’d already read many of the articles before looking at the book but was surprised at how many of them were completely new to me. How did I miss them on my favourite blog, which I read every day? I can’t answer that because I don’t know, but re-reading the ones I’d seen before evoked exactly the same feelings I had when I read them the first time. Can it be refreshing to read something for the second time? Reading the ones I hadn’t seen before brought another level of enjoyment and enlightenment. That’s pretty much how I’ve always felt about his work: enjoyment and enlightenment.
I won’t try and list headlines or chapter titles or give you samples or quotes. The range of subjects is too vast to select but a few for highlighting, and that would not do this book justice. Each page tells its own unique and deeply meaningful story.
Let me put it this way: The more I read, the more I wanted to write about here. The review could have been longer than the book.
The true success of any writer has to be in the feelings he or she evokes from the reader and there’s no shortage of feelings on every page whether you agree with the sentiments expressed or not.
An excellent read (or reads) that you can enjoy, put down and pick up again at any time for more entertainment. But don’t take my word for it. Get the book and enjoy it at your leisure.
