Word On Books
Guest reviewer - Lynne Bertram
Dealing - Women in the Drug Economy
by Dr Barbara Denton, Published by University of NSW Press
Of course everybody knows that drug-dealers are responsible for the decline in societal values affected by the seedy, self-feeding criminal world of the illicit drug trade.
The blame tends not to fall on the addicts who rely on their existence, nor on the legislators who make laws that ensure the continuation of the system.
No, it's definitely the dealers - they are bad people, brutal and immoral people, who are motivated solely by self-interest. The blokes are bad enough, but the women!
There is such a comfort in stereotypes that a lot of us accept them and take firm stances and form rigid opinions, based on biased evidence. If you feel more comfortable taking a position that is informed by ignorance and are scared that you might be forced to think differently in the face of fact, do not read this book.
The simplistic view does not apply. The world is complicated. The illicit drug economy and the licit economy do meet and the boundaries become blurred as the two sides feed off each other. Drugs exist, a lot of people have created the market, more people service that need. A lot of people are employed to destroy the market and some of those people do quite well out of the trade. These are just facts.
Denton goes where most of us would be too afraid to go - into the world of women drug dealers and or users, into their homes and into their prison lives. The author follows them and records their lives, and the more we learn from her experiences, the less the stereotypes fit. These are real people - they could be you or me, given the same circumstances and opportunities.
A lot of people dabble in drugs (another fact). A lot of people have need of a dealer from time to time (another fact). A woman dealing from her own home, presents a much less scary and trustworthy image than a man ever could. But the stereotypes work against these women because they bear the greater burden of social expectation, even in these enlightened times. A man would be better tolerated, perhaps even admired, but a woman selling drugs? Well, it's just not feminine.
Drug dealing, like any business in the 'straight' commercial world, relies on ethical behaviour. There is even more need for the same qualities that make any licit business successful: honesty, reliability and loyalty. The women Denton interviewed were successful at what they did. They have these qualities. Drug dealers are not 'different' from us - they just have a different way of earning a living.
Reviewed by Lynne Bertram
 Mungo
By Mungo MacCallum, Published by Duffy & Snelgrove
Mungo is the acerbic and witty memoirs of one of Australia's most renowned political journalists, Mungo MacCallum, now a resident of Byron shire and political commentator for The Byron Shire Echo.
His recollections on those days in the press gallery offer a perceptive and entertaining celebration of the characters and events of the Whitlam years.
It journeys through the Australian political landscape during a time when 'no vision seemed out of reach and no reform unattainable, when every day was another walk along the high wire to either glory or disaster'.
'From cold war politics, censorship, aboriginal affairs to the escalating conflict in Vietnam, few observers would deny that this period in Australian politics was a time of great contrasts and questions for all involved,' Mungo, the journo, writes.
Against the backdrop of the Cold War and the split in the ALP, Mungo takes us on a personal journey through his ancestry (the wealthy and eccentric Wentworth dynasty - Whitlam himself declared 'Who does this tall, bearded descendant of lunatic aristocrats think he is?') and youth.
His political awakening began at nine and by the time he graduated from Cranbrook he was both an atheist and confirmed Leftie.
He studied at Sydney University during the golden era (with the likes of Clive James, Les Murray, Bob Ellis, Bruce Beresford, Martin Sharp and Richard Neville), where he claims, despite rumours to the contrary, there was a decided lack of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Journeying overseas he eventually landed in Greece and stayed with George Johnston and Charmian Clift. Back in Australia, he landed his first proper job as a journalist on The Australian by impressing the editor-in-chief not with his writing but with his punctuation. Soon after, as a pseudonymous columnist for OZ, Mungo, the political journalist, was born.
Mungo reveals how ASIO agents penetrated the ABC when the fear of Cold War was at its heights (has anything really changed). He also confides that Menzies was a source of inspiration for Richard Nixon who stated 'No one could ever forget Robert Menzies. I learnt a lot from him' and that Snedden was 'clearly a boofhead'. Showing his bipartisanship, Mungo reckons Evatt was 'a few straws short of a basket, not to mention a couple of drumsticks light of the full chook'.
In what campaigning politicians call dark days (with no sense of irony), this is a welcome tonic and the comic relief a weary electorate needs.
- Jeremy Fenton will be back next week.
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