Australian Tragic: Gripping tales from the dark side of our history

(Paperback)

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Description

AUSTRALIAN TRAGIC ranges across our past and our present: the heartbreaking story of the fire at Luna Park; the unstoppable opportunist who snatched innocent men and women from Palm Island to be part of P. T. Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth'; a world-class boxer who lost his battle with alcohol and ended up in an unmarked American grave; a man who heroically survived a war to find himself crushed and defeated by events much closer to home; and a new story - of an echo from Ned Kelly at Stringybark Creek, in our own time ...Heartbreaking and shocking, gothic and weird, these fascinating stories are all true, and told to remind us of the Australia we don't know, the one that simmers with love and hate, of hopes raised and futures dashed, unheralded and unnoticed ...until now.

Reviews

By disciplining himself to write in a distinctive old-fashioned form, infused with 21st-century knowledge and sensibility, Marx transcends the genre... Marx is at his most impressive telling the stories sad and straight. He displays unusual empathy for the hopeless, the exploited and the downtrodden. - Weekend Australian indecently entertaining and ... fully of stories that deserve to be more widely known - The Age Jack Marx's AUSTRALIAN TRAGIC is in a class apart - The Australian

Author Bio

Jack Marx has written for the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, THE TIMES, the AGE, TRUTH, BLACK & WHITE, GQ, the EVENING STANDARD, PENTHOUSE, MEN'S STYLE, RALPH, MADISON, AUSTRALIAN TRAVELLER, ROLLING STONE and many other local and overseas publications. A former editor of AUSTRALIAN STYLE magazine, he has also written online blogs for both Fairfax Digital and News.com.au and won a Walkley Award in 2006 for the online feature, I WAS RUSSELL CROWE'S STOOGE. His books include THE DAMAGE DONE with Warren Fellows, SORRY - THE WRETCHED TALE OF LITTLE STEVIE WRIGHT and AUSTRALIAN TRAGIC.