My Brother Jack

The Meredith Trilogy #1

by George Johnston

The Miles Franklin award-winning classic. 'One of the greatest books written this century' - The Illustrated London News

'the thing I am trying to get at is what made Jack different from me. Different all through our lives, I mean, and in a special sense, not just older or nobler or braver or less clever.' David and Jack Meredith grow up in a patriotic suburban Melbourne household during the First World War, and go on to lead lives that could not be more different. through the story of the two brothers, George Johnston created an enduring exploration of two Australian myths: that of the man who loses his soul as he gains worldly success, and that of the tough, honest Aussie battler, whose greatest ambition is to serve his country during the war.

Acknowledged as one of the true Australian classics, My Brother Jack is a deeply satisfying, complex and moving literary masterpiece. David Meredith's story continues in the sequels Clean Straw for Nothing and A Cartload of Clay.

'Enthralling ... entertaining ... vividly original - the Age

Genres: Fiction, Australia, Classics, Historical Fiction, War, Historical, Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

George Henry Johnston was an Australia journalist, war correspondent and novelist. He published some thirty works, several of which were written in collaboration with his wife, the writer Charmian Clift.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Brother Jack is a sort of fictionalized autobiography… Mastery and sincerity prevail…
The First World War is over… The narrator is seven years old… His father has just returned from the battlefields… His mother is a nurse in the military hospital…

So there were quite a few disabled men, still pretty infirm, who suddenly found themselves demobilized and alone and helpless outside the army organization which for four years had enveloped every second of their activities, and with no place to go. These were the ones whom Mother brought to our house.

It is easy to envision pandemonium that ensued after the house turned into an asylum for the crippled…
The war put its imprint on the children too…

On Jack, the effect of the absence of both our parents at the war had been to make him wild and adventurous and reckless. He was fighting other kids in the streets, and usually winning. More and more often he would go truant from school…
…and it is perfectly true that the period which had turned him into a wild one had made me something of a namby-pamby. Jean bullied me, Jack despised me, my younger sister was a nuisance and a tell tale, so I clung to my grandmother then…

They are growing up… Jack is three years older… He is lucky in all things… His passion is girls… The narrator is moody… He is being trained in commercial art and his heart isn’t in it… Then one day he writes a story…

All I knew was that the readings in my bedroom, the exercise-book of poems stuffed inside the ticking of my mattress, my stubborn rejection of Jack’s alarming indoctrinations, had all come together at last into the semblance of a path that would lead somewhere. I was fifteen. And I was a writer. Lonely and secretive, and desperately anonymous, but still a writer.

He works… He writes articles for the paper… Everything seems to be fine… But the icy winds already start blowing…

It was like a great river flooding or changing its course, the way the Depression came – the insidious creeping movement of dark, strong, unpredictable forces, the flow of hidden currents, a clod falling and dissolving, a slide of earth, the cave-in of an entire bank, a sudden eddy swirling around a snag, tilting it over, sweeping it off into a black oblivion.

His brother Jack is severely beaten by the depression… But he himself manages to stay afloat working in the paper… But despite his success he is quite unsophisticated in the ways of life… And absolutely inexperienced in love…

Her overpowering loveliness, that smile beneath the casque of golden hair, the long lean flanks of her nakedness, youthful sensuality imaged for me for the first time. My reaction to this was ludicrous.

He gets married… Everything is fine… His life turns into routine… He is dissatisfied… He rebels… But his mutiny is so childish… The war begins… His brother Jack enlists…

…and the newspapers were filling up with casualty lists, and it was a war now, a real war, there was no doubt about it, and the hospital ships were coming back…

We live and history defines the ways of our lives.

[zed · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best novels I have ever read.

A roman-à-clef based on the author George Johnston’s life, narrator David Meredith tells his story from his youngest memories of his father coming home from the Great War through to the end of the Second World War when David had become a war correspondence journalist of some repute.

Hugely thematic in delivery covering various issues such as domestic violence be that physical or psychological, family relationships through to the cultural changes that had occurred between the wars. Johnston’s character descriptions are superb and left this reader with an absolute image of the physical and temperaments of all dramatis personae who came into contact with David Meredith no matter how small or large they loomed in his life.

As a thematic work the major theme in my opinion was guilt. David Meredith gave thought to his and his only brothers vastly different attitudes and approaches to their lives with David’s guilt looming large. The brothers vastly different approach to their lives and their consideration as to others had this reader trying to understand and consider from beginning to end my own thought process as to relationships we have with one and all on our life journey. There is no doubt in my mind that George Johnston was a very complex individual, one who was looking for something that he may never have found. I later read about his life and he was indeed just that, complex. Are we as individuals as complex? Do we have the talent to put into coherent thought and words a life not spent as we thought it could have or should be? Do the vast majority of us really care?

Having won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, My Brother Jack had always been on my radar. Once begun, I could not put it down and read late into the evening. Terms such as classic may be thrown around far too much in the literary world but this is a superlative that My Brother Jack deserves. As to winners of Australia’s highest literary award this is as good as a winner as I have read so far. Deserving of all the praise that it received on publication and any more that has come its way over 50 years since.

Highly recommended!

[C.S. Boag · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is part of my life, this book. I read it years ago when I was a reporter on The Sydney Morning Herald.
George Johnstone and Charmian Clift were everybody's dream - ran away for love and lived on a Greek island. Their children were allowed to run wild. My Brother jack was the first book in a trilogy that was to define their dream.
Only it wasn't a dream, of course but a nightmare. This was the 1960's and Charmian Clift was writing a beautiful column for The Herald. The love affair had come and gone: Charmian, alas, drank too much and George was dying. I worked with Martin, their son, who wore his hair long, was a dreadful police-rounds man and wrote beautiful poetry. Martin died young and so did his sister, I believe.
All that was fifty years ago and now even the nightmare has faded. But the trilogy still stands. We read My Brother Jack for our book group. Again I was gripped by its beautiful simplicity of language, its evocative power and its honesty. These were the between war years in Australia- poverty and depression. Johnstone was part of it and although it is fiction, much of this is his story. Read it and be moved

[Sharon Metcalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
It was only after I finished reading My Brother Jack by George Johnston that I discovered it had been the winner of the 1964 Miles Franklin award. To win, novels must be of the highest literary merit and present Australian life in any of its phases There is no question in my mind that this was a thoroughly deserving winner. The writing was exceptional and I have a whole new understanding of what it was like in Melbourne, Australia during the 1920's, 30's and 40's.

This very character driven story focuses on the fictional Merdith family. David is the central character and narrator. The story begins with his earliest memory, that of welcoming his father home from WWI, and meanders through his childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Not all the characters were likeable; his father was often drunk and violent and ruled the home with an heavy hand. David himself seemed almost self loathing at times, and to be frank, this was not without reason. Growing up his brother Jack was everything David was not - athletic, social, popular with girls, a go-getter and risk taker. Having been a studious child and somewhat of a loner, David ultimately found success as a writer becoming a journalist and war correspondent during WWII. He acquired a level of fame and renown that he felt undeserving of, and uncomfortable about, yet he was still perfectly happy to take advantage of the perks that accompanied it.

Whilst the story itself was perfectly fine, the setting, the time and place was the real hero for me. It provided a
fascinating history lesson joining the dots between places as they were then and as I know them now. I thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing brand names and businesses of days gone by, being reminded of the colloquialisms used by my grandfather and his cronies, and understanding the impact of world events on one family in Melbourne, Australia. The writing gave it the feel of a memoir and this can be explained by the fact that though the Meredith's were a fictional family, many of the elements of the story were autobiographical. I have since learnt this is the first of a trilogy, the second was also a Miles Franklin award winner so I guess I'm not done with the Merdith family yet.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the absolute masterpieces of Australian literature. It explores many aspects of the Australian psyche but also touches on universal themes concerned with childhood, adolescence, and finally adulthood, as it follows the life of David Meredith, a ubiquitous (autobiographical?) figure in Johnston’s writing.

[Angus Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

All Aussie classic that has timeless values about progressing through life & how we change our thinking & values due to our environment. I read it twice first time at secondary school.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not actually sure where to start in documenting my thoughts and feelings about My Brother Jack. This book has been on my list for a while now - it was one of those high school required readings here in Australia, although somehow I was always in the other class where we read something else so I missed out. Probably not a bad thing because the book would have been wasted on my 15 year old self. My 52 year old self has been significantly impacted by it however, and I am left quite unsettled and disrupted having come to the end of it just now.

So what is it that has resonated with me? Firstly, the very title of the book... My Brother Jack... yet the majority of the book is actually about David, Jack’s brother, through whom the entire story is narrated. Jack is the shape around which Davy finds some sense of definition. The book is really the story of David’s own self development, a self that exists around Jack, yet a self that is entirely different. A self that is constantly trying to make sense of his environment and where he finds himself.

Secondly, and at risk of self-revelation, I see much of myself in Davy. Someone who merges with others, feels different from those around him, seeks definition from others, conflict avoidant, peace keeping, perhaps somewhat passive-aggressive, unable to truly articulate himself. Enneagram type 9 perhaps with a wing 8.

With Jack, what you see is what you get. He’s the epitome of a true blue Australian man. David on the other hand is different, unsure of himself, full of secrets, deceptions, and thoughts that we are privy to. Kind of like the proverbial black sheep of the family. While he seems to long to give full expression to that difference, something keeps bringing him back to Jack, his honesty, authenticity, suredness, and confidence. With Jack there are guarantees, with David there are no such things.

I loved this book so much. It will stay with me for a long while to come.

[David Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hated this book when I read it in high school but several years later when I read it at Uni I absolutely loved it.

There's something to be said for reading a book at just the right time for it to have maximum impact.

[Marie Belcredi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not so much about Jack but more about the narrator David Meredith using Jack as a counterpoint. The two brothers are very different. One has little success but is happy and has a happy marriage whilst David becomes a successful journalist of whom Jack is very proud. Jack, however, lives in a sterile world which he comes to see in the closing pages of the book. He looks to the young Cressida to save him from the superficial marriage that he has with Helen. One of the things I hate in books written by males and even movies is how an aged, cynical and broken man discards a woman of his own age and takes up with a younger, beautiful woman and has the ability to start all over again. So what happens to older women? They get discarded and become spinsters.
George describes the dreary suburbs where he grows up:

What was so terrifying about these suburbs was that they accepted their mediocrity. They were worse than slums. They betrayed nothing of anger or revolt or resentment; they lacked the grim adventure of true poverty; they had no suffering, because they had mortgaged this right simply to secure a sad acceptance of a suburban respectability that ranked them socially a step or two higher than the true, dangerous slums of Fitzroy or Collingwood.

I feel I know these suburbs. Places of quiet desperation. There is domestic violence where his father is frustrated and angry and takes it out on his wife.
Move forward a decade and Davey is given a break and given a job as a journalist and then as a war correspondent. Of this he says, rather unconvincingly, I thought,

Yet as one looks back on it now and very clearly sees the difference between the picture as it actually was and the somewhat glorified picture that was conveyed back to the people in mainland Australia, one also sees how desperately necessary the dishonesty was.

The counterpoint is Jack who enlists on the first day and is finally given a chance for some kind of active duty but is happy and cheerful to do his bit.
The two brothers are shown in the end in contrast and Davey, famous for writing glorious descriptions of a dirty hard war is given prominence against the men, friends of Davey's who have been wounded in their very different roles in the war.
For success one needs not only talent, that Davey has in spades, but also that lucky break. His friend Sam Burlington who unfortunately got involved in a murder has a great deal of talent but luck is not on his side and he never realises his talent.
The language is beautiful and evocative and the book is engaging. It reminds me a bit of David Malouf's Johnno.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

About fifty years ago, a teacher in a small rural primary school started reading aloud this book to his class of Form 1 and 2 students. He only got through the first chapter before the book was voted "too boring" by the class, and it was abandoned. Yet something about that first chapter must have struck a chord with me, as I've wanted to finish the book ever since. In the intervening time, I lived in Melbourne for a while, which certainly helped with appreciating the context. I can finally report that the teacher was right, it is a good book. And the class was right too, not really a suitable book for that age group (or at least, that particular group of students).

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Australian friends had recommended this, after taking me to visit the last house in which the author lived. Very enjoyable reading another country's coming-of-age classic, full of wonderful descriptions of 1920-45. Looking at other reviews here, it's another case of a book that high schoolers probably aren't ready for (seems it shows up on year 12 reading lists) but that older fans of literature will savor.

[N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Brother Jack is an Australian classic and that's the reason I bought it (so long ago that I can't remember when) but the cover is deceptive. The two men in uniform gave me the impression the book was going to focus on WWII. In fact, neither of the brothers in My Brother Jack fights in WWII. The story is really a semi-autobiographical novel about two brothers who are vastly different yet each other's strongest supporters over the years. It's told from the perspective of David, a writer, and there are notes in the back of the book about some of the biggest differences between the author's life and reality.

David and Jack's story begins when their parents return from WWI, their father to great acclaim as a returning soldier and their mother quietly from her time as a nurse. While Mr. Meredith returns to his same job, making little money, and becomes abusive, Mrs. Meredith continues working at the local hospital and their house overflows with soldiers who are not quite recovered and have nowhere to go but no longer qualify for hospitalization.

Eventually, David begins to take long walks along the pier to escape the violence and crowding in his home and when he does, he meets an old sailor and learns his story. David begins writing and submits his stories under a pen name. He is quiet at home and disinterested in having a social life but he quickly begins to earn more money than his father.

Jack is his opposite, playful and outgoing, eager to get out of town and see the world, and clearly pleased at his sexual conquests. The back cover says Jack's "greatest ambition is to serve his country during the war" but, although it's discussed remotely, the war doesn't truly get going till around p. 285 of a 367 page book. That comment on the cover blurb may be part of the reason I expected a war book.

What I really loved about the book was the depth of detail and the relationships as well as the brief viewpoint of a world war from the Australian end, something I don't believe I've ever read, before. Jack and David both eventually marry but while one is happy and has loads of children, the other slowly comes to the realization that he never loved his wife in the first place and leads a shallow, meaningless life. And, in the end, it is WWII that reveals the characters beneath the facade.

A slow but lovely read. My favorite passage describes the Australian urge to explore the world, something I've often wondered about (on p. 286 of the A & R copy shown in the image).

[Banafsheh Serov · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Australian classic, My Brother Jack is the story of Davy and Jack Meredith, two brothers growing up in a Melbourne suburb during the years between the First and Second World War.
Born to a drunken, abusive father and a caring, loving mother, the boys are distinctively different from an early age. While the older brother Jack is a tough fighter, who drinks, swears and wenches, the younger brother Davy lives a quiet existence under the shadow of his brother, preferring the company of books.

During the depression years, the fortune of the brothers starts to change. Davy earns a good income and a growing popularity as a writer. With a glamorous wife, a new house in a new suburb and a set of fashionably desirable friends, Davy seem to have it all. Yet feeling straitjacketed by constraints of his new status, Davy yearns for the grounded simplicity and honesty of Jack’s life.

At the advent of WWII, the brothers grow further apart as Davy’s status and importance increases. With the relationship of the brothers taking 180 degrees turn, Jack looks up to his younger brother, showing the type of admiration that as youngsters, Davy felt towards jack.

Flawless and effortless prose has ensured that both My Brother Jack and its sequel Clean Straw for Nothing win the prestigious Miles Franklin Award. However, the book feels dated which may explain why it’s rarely studied anymore in the Australian schools. 3 stars

[J.D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another contender for The Great Australian Novel if it wasn’t so autobiographical. The titular Jack helped shaped my idealisation of what it was to be an Australian male. The rough around the edge's gallantry, up for a lark, don’t take anything, let alone yourself, too seriously. Never back down, stand up for one’s mates. Drink. Protect and provide for your family, Blind loyalty to your country. Fair to say that it might not have aged well. Being that period in our history there wasn’t much to be proud of culturally. Our general treatment of anyone not U.K descended, or male, was reprehensible, parental discipline/brutality, alcohol consumption et al. With the threat of being cancelled, I’d still call it a classic.
Rumoured to be so titled at the suggestion of Leonard Cohen.

[Stephen Huntley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another example of the worthy but uninspiring borefest forced on students in high school. Kids should be encouraged to read with books that are entertaining and fun to them, not what some dry and dreary education official deems will be in their best interest. Same for science and history. Make it fun and exciting and spark a life-long passion. The serious stuff should be left for those studying the subjects at uni.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captures the longing for meaning, purpose and fulfilment among the mundane disappointment of everything that fails to give you that joy you hoped you would find in your exploits. Depressing, yet touches a deep nerve and if you let it awakens you to search beyond of the places you (and the author) have already failed to find what you have always hoped for...

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 for me, probably. It was a compelling read and flew through it pretty quickly. But David Meredith (and, to an extent, George Johnston) is a miserable human being and the "ironic" self-loathing never quite makes up for the blatant misogyny and racism in the book.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Australian classic published in 1964 is worth reading for the vivid picture it paints of Australia in the 1920 and 30s between the wars and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

It is the story of David Meredith, a shy quiet, unathletic boy and his brother Jack, the quintessential robust, knock-about Aussie bloke growing up in middle Australia during the depression. Their household however was unusual in that their mother, a nurse, had filled the house with wounded soldiers with nowhere else to go after they left hospital, to the point where young David thought it was perfectly normal for men to be missing one or more limbs. In addition to this there were a number of elderly, infirm aunts and a grandmother living with them and a violent father who took exception to David's quiet ways.

That the story is semi-autobiographical is well known although his family and other characters are loosely based on people he has known and are larger than life. Like David Meredith, George Johnston was trained as a lithographer after the left school but took up writing and was eventually offered a job as a reporter for a Melbourne newspaper before escaping what he saw as the sterility of Australian suburban life and going on to become a famous war correspondent. His brother Jack looms large in his early life as someone he looks up to and will never be, but in the end he eclipses him and the tables are reversed with Jack broken and defeated, demoted to working in a non-combatant job in the army pay corps while his brother strides across the world stage, visiting places Jack will never see.

[Anthony Irven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have ever read! Which is strange as I was given this book as a gift three years ago and kept avoiding it as I thought it would be slow and stodgy, but how wrong I was.
I think George Johnston has fashioned the great Australian novel and younger writers will either have to give up that as an aim of just write books to the best of their ability.
This book mirrors my father and mothers lifetimes and covers the same momentous periods of turbulence and turmoil. It would be interesting to know if any other generation has gone through such tumultuous times. Born on the back of the First World war and just as things are on the improve for ordinary working class families, they head into the Great Depression, what confidence to these people have that politicians and Governments actually know what they are doing!
As things start to look up again, war clouds gather over Europe and a resource hungry Japan is eyeing other possession much closer to home.
But within these historic and life changing events ordinary lives take their course moulded by the circumstance that exist within each and every individual and individual family.
Ultimately to me it is the story of the old values which Australians used to value and cherish, dramatically contrasted with the values which arise from the ashes of the First World War. It mirrors the rise of big businesses and corporations as they replace the older and smaller family run businesses.
The story is told through the lives of two brothers whose lives take different directions, one with little luck, but hard work and enduring values, Jack the older brother and David, the lucky and talented younger brother.
A read of this Australian Classic would be well worth it!

[Rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of how I came across this book is simple. In my year 10 english class the teacher wanted us to read a book by an Australian author set in Australia and identify the Australian culture. I was told the plot synopsis to this. It sounded interesting but as a whole this could have been a lot better.

For starters there is no real narrative flow. George Johnston wrote with phrases like "until this day, I do not know if we really did plan an engagement", "I remember back to..." It got REALLY annoying. I also thought that this was originally going to be a war book - tell us the story of David Meredith's time in the war and lets be honest that would be interesting - the psychological harm of war is ALWAYS a hard subject to bear - but instead we got "I went to an art class...A girl was murdered and I was suspected...I met a girl at this party...we got engaged" which is nowhere near as interesting.

One complaint that is trivial; Jack plays almost zero part in this book - the book could have been called "my life as a journalist" and nothing would really change.

I do like everything else - the violence the Meredith kids had to go through was shocking to read, I admire Johnston for being able to combine two people he knew into one character.

Overall this wasn't a bad book but this is FAR from my taste.

[GLF (Seeing better than ever!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading "My Brother Jack" some 40 years ago. In my youth it was a different book to the one I have just finished reading. Then it was full of "optimism" and discovery, but when I read it now it paints a rather oppressive picture of Australia between the wars. How social values have changed over the years!

My recollection of "My Brother Jack" was that it was rather light, fluffy and feel good. My goodness it had "S-E-X" in it and a 'liberated' catch cry - "The pubic for the public". Just the sort of thing for a young man to read. And I remember the description of the older houses in the suburbs of Melbourne; bringing back memories from my childhood of houses I could remember.

But now re-reading it, I find it a much darker story describing the ravages of war, child abuse, social & political aspirations, work ethics etc. etc. No wonder when I went to read the other two books in the David Meredith trilogy (some years later) I found them much heavier going. Clearly in my youth I'd glossed over bits and filtered out a lot of the story of "My Brother Jack".

No wonder it won a Miles Franklin award. It has sufficient depth to be read many times and understood on many different levels.

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book chronicles the lives of two brothers: Jack and David as the grow up in Australia. Their parents both left the brothers and their two daughters to serve in the army and the nurses' corps during World War I. We get the story mainly from David's point of view as he grows up in a house full of violence and discord, he admires his brother Jack. It is a fascinating look at how the lives of both brothers take different paths. It is also an interesting look at life in Australia in the period between the wars. I really enjoyed this book, though it was slow going at first. When I finished, I wished that there was more of it.

[Leslie Crawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic description of suburban Australia between the wars. Also surprising the relevance that parts of the novel had to today's society. Very visual with George Johnston using words to paint a 3D image in brilliant colour that evoked a real sense of the times. Recommended for anyone interested in between wars/great depression/Australian literature.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and some of the imagery remains with me. Especially the part when as a young boy he thought all adult males were meant to have a limb missing. This was because all the men he knew had returned injured from the war.
This is a great Australian novel.

[Wendy Waters · Rating 2 out of 5]

All tell and no show.

Unfortunately, Johnston was nowhere near the writer his wife, Charmain Clift, was.

Johnston reads like a very self-absorbed man who just loves to tell you all about himself and leaves no detail unturned.

[Joanne Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book set just after the first world war and to the end of the second…. The story is so insightful of a family of the times going through the depression and poverty and in this family, violence… based on the author’s life and his relationships …. A tough life beautifully written

[Kate Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love My Brother Jack and have read it every few years since first reading it in highschool, each time I read it I love it even more.

[Tracy Smyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did like this book but thought it an odd title as Jack wasn’t in it much

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

After much deliberation, my friend chose this book for my birthday. Like a brave soldier, I valiantly struggled through this dense coming of age story from the protagonist's miserable childhood to his eventual full-blown midlife crisis. Unfortunately, there are no epic battles in this book, just a series of compromises and defeats. The protagonist strikes me as one of the most cowardly and soulless characters I've encountered. Now I'm pondering why my friend chose this book...

[Tim Allerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant document of life in Australia/Melbourne spanning the two Great Wars.
The novel explains the unique advantages and quirks of living and being an Australian.