Welcome to our Summer issue. As we prepared this holiday edition it was raining in Victoria. Even a little in New South Wales—enough, thank God, to help douse the bushfires. Very Australian, that—drought here, fires there and hailstones bound to arrive as soon as you set up the annexe of the tent. So pop your Eureka Street into a plastic bag—like an orienteer’s map—and open at page 24 so you can while away the bad weather, or the humidity, or the longueurs of the Boxing Day Test with this year’s worse-than-ever Eureka Street Quiz.
Families preoccupy us over Christmas and the holiday season. This month two of our writers take a fresh look at the intricacy of family bonds, and the delicate business of being honest about them in print. Peter Rose (pictured, above right, with his brother Robert, and his father, Collingwood hero Bob Rose, below) discloses some of the difficulties—and the rewards—of writing Rose Boys, his poet’s account of growing up in a sporting family, and dealing with his brother’s life and premature death.
In quite a different vein, Tracey Rigney tells the story of her grandfather, Jack Kennedy, a Wotjobaluk man from Dimboola, who fought with the Sixth Division in Syria and later campaigned for land rights back home. A playwright, Tracey catches the voice and dignity of a man she both loves and admires. Dorothy Horsfield, in ‘Seven days in Kabul’, looks at the aftermath of war in Afghanistan, and meets some extraordinary characters involved in its reconstruction.
Back home, Bruce Duncan and Andrew Hamilton examine the theory and practice of just war—and ask whether or not Australia should be involved in Iraq.