{"product_id":"9781925435177","title":"Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers","description":"\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eAbsurd, original and highly addictive . . .\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eTheir Brilliant Careers\u003c\/i\u003e, Ryan O'Neill has written a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Meet Rachel Deverall, who discovered the secret source of the great literature of our time - and paid a terrible price for her discovery. Meet Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author (of \u003ci\u003eWhiteman of Cor\u003c\/i\u003e) and inveterate racist. Meet Addison Tiller, master of the bush yarn, \"The Chekhov of Coolabah\", who never travelled outside Sydney. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eTheir Brilliant Careers\u003c\/i\u003e is a playful set of stories, linked in many ways, which together form a memorable whole. A wonderful comic tapestry of the writing life, this unpredictable and intriguing work takes Australian writing in a whole new direction . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eShortlisted, 2017 NSW Premier's Literary Awards\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘You have to admire O’Neill’s delicious bravura. He’s been one of the few short fiction writers of recent years willing to play around with the form’s possibilities … Apart from the fact there are more funny lines in O’Neill’s 288 pages than there are likely to be in the entirety of Australian literature elsewhere this year, the profiles are woven smartly together, as the characters’ fates and careers intertwine.’ —\u003ci\u003eSaturday Paper\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘Ryan O’Neill combines conventions of biography and short story in an exhaustively brazen blend of Australian literary history and plausible yet gloriously bonkers invention.’ —Elke Power, \u003ci\u003eReadings Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘\u003ci\u003eTheir Brilliant Careers\u003c\/i\u003e … brims with crackerjack wit. Pressure is subtly built; punchlines are explosive.’ —\u003ci\u003eAustralian Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘Ryan O’Neill has embarked on the task of creating a satirical, funny alternative history to Australian literature, an exercise he has achieved admirably and with brilliance.’ —\u003ci\u003eWriters Bloc\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘[Ryan O'Neill] offers a book that is a piss-take, a celebration, a revisionist history and, perhaps most impressively, exceedingly good fun.’ —Dominic Amerena, the \u003ci\u003eAustralian\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ‘O'Neill has arranged a beautiful board of slain waxwings, no less funny or moving for being, in the final estimate of things, no more than shadows of the never living and the forever dead.’ —Adam Rivett, \u003ci\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ryan O’Neill is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Weight of a Human Heart\u003c\/i\u003e. He was born in Glasgow in 1975 and has lived in Africa, Europe and Asia before settling in Newcastle, Australia, with his wife and two daughters. His fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Best Australian Stories, The Sleepers Almanac, Meanjin, New Australian Stories, Wet Ink, Etchings\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWesterly\u003c\/i\u003e. His work has won the Hal Porter and Roland Robinson awards and been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Steele Rudd Award and the \u003ci\u003eAge\u003c\/i\u003e Short-Story Prize. He teaches at the University of Newcastle.","brand":"Black Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47132025225456,"sku":"9781925435177","price":18.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781925435177_p0.jpg?v=1763636378","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781925435177","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}