A Fine and Private Place

by Brian Matthews

This is a sometimes funny, sometimes intensely moving but never sentimental account of a working-class upbringing on the wrong side of the tracks in St Kilda. The book ranges across many of Brian Matthews' deepest passions and explores relentlessly some of his most insistent memories through the extraordinary prism of wartime and post-war St Kilda. A Fine and Private Place uses at its core the themes of graves, deaths and disappearances, families, relationships between fathers and sons; but throughout the memoir is the recurring theme of living for the moment, working-class joys, the frustrations of putting all your hopes on your football team. At times heartbreakingly sad; at other times wonderfully witty, A Fine and Private Place is one of the most rewarding memoirs of recent years.

279 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Well known as a raconteur, storyteller and public speaker, Brian Matthews is a hopelessly unreconstructed St Kilda supporter who has spent far too much of his life at the MCG and other sporting grounds pursuing truth and victory. He is the author of many books, including Louisa, the life of Louisa Lawson, and, more recently, As the Story Goes and the autobiography A Fine and Private Place. He had a cult following as a famously funny and satiric weekly columnist for the Australian Weekend Magazine from 1997 to 2001 and now writes a monthly column for Eureka Street. Brian's writing ranges widely over literary non-fiction, criticism, fiction, popular culture, satire and sport. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Europe-Australia Institute at Victoria University and lives in the Clare Valley in South Australia with his wife, Jane Arms.