April Book of the Month: Apollo & Thelma by Jon Faine
Apollo & Thelma
by Jon Faine
Review by Jaye
Jon Faine’s Apollo & Thelma is a genre-defying book. It’s a biography for sure, but whose? The strongman The Mighty Apollo’s? His sister, Thelma of the ‘leather tits’? His sons, the Anderson Brothers? Or perhaps it’s a vehicle to talk about communist Frank Hardy and his contribution to the iconic Gurindji walk out. Then again, perhaps after all it is Faine’s own autobiography? How can he help himself? After 23 years as one of the top broadcasters at Aunty, the stories will keep spilling forth.
Let’s get straight to the heart of this review - I LOVE this book. It’s messy and chaotic but it held me spellbound and intrigued and taken aback by how much I ultimately cared about the legacy of a strongman I had little interest in at the start. In fact, it was Apollo’s sister, Thelma’s story, that first grabbed me. A female publican who ran an outback pub in the territories, Thelma sequestered money in the thousands of dollars in her apartment above the bar. Untold riches which only came to light because of a dog, a frog and a cop. What’s not to like about such a larger-than-life character? Well, plenty, as it turns out.
It’s in Faine’s re-telling of the confronting truths of remote life and the running of an outback pub where the book really sunk its hooks in. Not through the romanticised pioneer spirit (although there was PLENTY of that) but through the dastardly practice of selling alcohol to the local Aboriginal population at exorbitant and racially-differentiated prices. And then came the historical litany of much worse crimes. Characteristically, Faine pulls no punches. And it’s overwhelming.
Reading Apollo & Thelma is to glimpse the things that pique Jon Faine’s interest. I’m reminded of the story Steve Jobs told in his 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University. One day at college, Jobs randomly sat in on a calligraphy class, simply because he was interested. That small experience seeded the idea for the beautiful typography for which Apple computers became known. Likewise, Apollo & Thelma tells of the people, objects and issues that interested Faine over the years. There are stories within stories within stories, but somehow out of the mayhem several leitmotifs emerge. These symbiotically entwine, not unlike the beautifully intertwined tree trunks of artisan gardeners.
I would be willing to bet that while Faine was living his life and pursuing his two differing careers – law and media – he had no inkling that amongst the multitude of distractions he encountered and all those people from different walks of life, that everything might link to everything else. It read to me, in fact, as though he had no idea where the book would take him when he first started. But when he finally arrived it must have been with a sense of wonderment that after all there is a big beautiful pattern to it all. Perhaps even one that’s pre-ordained. In the telling of his story, Faine awakens the reader to things that matter.
This book tells about an extraordinary character and his extraordinary sister, about a baby lawyer turned media superstar, about a communist who cared deeply about social injustices and the politicians who understood, and finally, unflinchingly, about the continued mistreatment of Australia’s First Nations peoples.
It’s intimate, yet deals with massive, very Australian issues. It made me weep. It made me want to book tickets to Darwin. It made me want to read Frank Hardy’s The Unfortunate Australians, but only after I’ve re-read Power without Glory. It made me question whether life is chaos or if indeed there are big swirling, beautiful patterns if only we cared to look. I am so glad Faine looked.
It’s that sort of book. It deals with legacies and here Mr Faine has cemented his.
RRP $45.00