Elliot Perlman, John Jeremiah Sullivan_24 and 25

Elliot Perlman is an Australian writer and barrister who has won the Miles Franklin Award, so that's a strong start. 'Maybe the Horse Will Talk' is fabulous; very clever, witty, dry and wry and moving. Stephen Maserov is a teacher turned reluctant lawyer at heartless mega-firm Freely Savage Carter Blanche (and that's the genius of this book in a nutshell). Stephen is a very kind man "absolutely terrified of losing a job he absolutely hates". The company is a nest of vipers; a stronghold of toxic, entitled masculinity and casual discrimination and sexual assault, brilliantly wrought by Perlman. Can Stephen save his marriage and pay the mortgage without selling his soul? 

'Pulphead' by John Jeremiah Sullivan came via the Street Library; thank you, Library Gods. Sullivan is an essayist and journalist who's written for all the big magazines (NYT Magazine, Harpers, Paris Review). 'Pulphead' is a collection of his longer essays about popular culture and American oddities—right up my alley. Sullivan is self-aware about his role as literary entertainer: do the journalism thing, then "Fly home, stir in statistics. Paycheck." So for the most part he doesn't, and these essays go pretty deep. 'Upon The Rock' is 40 pages about a Christian rock festival and could so easily have been knowing and cynical, but really wasn't; Sullivan reveals his own teenage Evangelicalism and enduring love of Jesus ("He was the most beautiful dude") and brings a loving kindness to his description of the hillbilly crazies he hangs out with ("They were crazy, and they loved God—and I thought of the unimpeachable dignity of that, which I was never capable of."). Then Sullivan offers the best thing I have ever read about Michael Jackson, and an absorbing article about prehistoric cave art in Tennessee. And other stuff, all pretty amazing, ending with a bizarre journalistic investigation into animal/human war—which he ends by admitting he made most of it up. Naturally, 'Pulphead' makes it into the permanent collection.