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Good Reading : April 2012
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good reading april 2012 47 April 2012 main main Catholic stock, who convinced everybody that he was a naive, loveable Italian immigrant who lobbed here with nothing but an English phrasebook that bore no resemblance to the pub talk in Kings Bloody Cross. Nino quickly learns that a ‘schooner’ is not a sailing vessel and a ‘shout’ doesn’t mean to yell, all handy material for the articles about the Australian way of life he is supposedly writing for an Italian newspaper. He takes a labouring job in an attempt to meet ‘Working Australians’, and is initiated into the world of mateship. Nino may not always understand what his ‘cursing, profane, laughing, beer-drinking, abusive, loyal-to-his-mates Australian’ friends are saying but he learns to love them; they will always stand by him even if they give him a ribbing in the process. He winds up buying a block of land, marries a builder’s daughter and thanks God for ‘letting me be an Australian’. The reviewers praised the ‘New Australian’ Culotta for his ‘triumph over a strange and ridiculous tongue’ and for ‘marching boldly but unassumingly into unfamiliar surroundings’. Only, the surroundings were not unfamiliar, and there was nothing unassumed about it. The book happened by accident. John O’Grady was a pharmacist. He accepted his lot until he took a bet with his younger brother, Frank, my grandfather, whose historical novels included The Golden Valley in 1955 and Hanging Rock in 1957. John’s son, also John O’Grady, recalls it well: ‘Every Sunday the family would gather at my grandparents’ home in Bronte. One Sunday my Uncle Frank had a new book out and foolishly asked Da what he thought of it. My father used to refer to Frank’s books as “library novels”, because they were researched in the library. Da said, “Not much, and if I can’t write a better book than that I’ll give up.” So Frank bet him £10 that he couldn’t write any sort of book and get it published. “I’ll take the bet,” Da said.’ John had written before – one-act plays for the Sydney Repertory Theatre, which he resurrected, including a version of Julius Caesar in the vernacular – but never a novel. When he took time out from the pharmacy sometime in the mid-50s to help a mate build a house at Punchbowl, it got him thinking. ‘He was fascinated by the people he met on the building site – but couldn’t understand them,’ recalls John Jnr. ‘They were speaking “Australianese”, as he used to call it. He thought the language was wonderful, but asked himself, “If I can’t understand it, what about these poor migrants?” At the same time he’d been learning Italian from his barber, so that’s where the idea for the book came from.’ At the age of 49, John O’Grady wrote They’re a Weird Mob in six weeks in an exercise book before heading to Samoa as the Government Pharmacist. He gave the manuscript to his son and forgot all about it. ‘He said, “Toss this in a drawer until I get back.” He certainly didn’t think it would get published. But I decided it was too good for that. I really did think it was very funny.’ John Jnr, who was working with Reg Grundy on Wheel of Fortune on 2CH, decided to act as his father’s agent. After a rejection from the legendary editor Beatrice Davis at Angus & Roberston – ‘in spite of some very amusing incidents and a fine command of Australian slang, the story would not make a successful book’ – he sent the manuscript to the publisher Ure Smith, under the pseudonym Nino Culotta (culotta being slang for ‘bum’, a word John presumably learnt from his barber). Sam Ure Smith gave the pages to his secretary, Janet Venn-Brown. ‘I was the first one to read it,’ recalls Janet, whose job it was to read the slush pile and ‘make the tea’. ‘I used to take the manuscripts to the hairdresser when I went to get my hair set in my lunchtime. Most of them were very boring. Suddenly this one seemed brilliant. It was terribly funny. I laughed all the time. It was very original in its approach to Australia. I ran back to the office and said to Sam, “I think this could be a bestseller.”’ ‘She came rushing back to the office waving it in the air,’ Sam remembers, ‘and said, “You have to read this now.” I started it on the train and I came back the next morning and said, “You’ve picked a winner.” It was plain good humour. Very Australian and entertaining. I thought, “I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t sell like mad.” I rang John O’Grady, the agent, and said, “I accept this for publication.”’ John was delighted but also disconcerted. ‘I didn’t know quite what to tell Sam because he wanted to meet the author. I tried to fudge it but decided to let him in on the secret that Nino Culotta book bitE 2 But they were suspicious. I cabled him and said we needed a photo, so he sent a picture of himself sitting on a kerosene tin with his back to the camera. 46_48_bookbite2_c.indd 47 7/3/12 10:03:39 PM
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