Book Review Jim Haynes: Best Australian DRINKING STORIES (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2018) 270 pages

I first became aware of this anthology through an ABC podcast of Jim Haynes’s audiobook during Trevor Chappell’s Overnights broadcast a few months ago. Haynes, an ex-teacher, has recently published several anthologies through Allen & Unwin including; The Best Australian Sea Stories, The Best Australian Bush Stories, The Best Australian Trucking Stories, The Best Australian Yarns and the like: https://www.allenandunwin.com/authors/h/jim-haynes

In the audiobook, Jim Haynes uses his own voice to narrate many of the poems, short stories and social histories within this collection. I was drawn into the book, because at the time, I was writing my own set of pub short stories called The Empty Glass, which is scheduled to be published in early 2020. I was trying to figure out if my work was interesting and contemporary and I closely examined DRINKING STORIES to see what I could glean from it. 

Disappointingly, much of the focus of Haynes’s anthology is a nostalgic and sentimental one- looking back on the drinking history and culture of Australia’s long bygone days. About a third of the book comprises of Hayne’s social histories

which are clearly written and entertaining but very general and largely undocumented. 

His best and longest study is of “The Valentine’s Day Mutiny” in which Australian soldiers in 1916 rioted to protest the terrible barrack conditions in Liverpool NSW and went on a wild riot, ransacking several pubs and drinking them dry until order was eventually restored. Referendums in 1917 supported by the temperance movement lead to restrictive laws which banned the serving of booze in pubs after 6 pm until 1955 in New South Wales and 1966 in Victoria.

 Also impressive are “The 99^thRegiment Are Revolting” about the 1846 mutiny and “The Alcoholic History of Australia” in which Haynes provides us with an overview of the role of grog in our history.

The cover perhaps provides a telling clue as to what the reader might expect from the anthology. It appears to depict a 1950s pub crowd of men and women happily toasting  drinks. A superimposed clock reads 10 pm. They are probably celebrating the end to the Six O’Clock Swill- which happened nearly 65 years ago.

For copyright reasons, a lot of the material is very dated- first published in the early 20^thCentury. Despite its title BEST DRINKING STORIES there are only 18 short stories in the collection, including four by Haynes. His best work is his short stories such as “There’s A Patron Saint of Drunks” about Dipso Dan, a hometown drunk from Haynes’s fictional town of Weelabarabak, which he has compiled stories since the 1980s and “Charlie’s Story” about Charlie’s reminiscences about his old man who was badly wounded during World War 2. 

Overall of the 62 pieces in the anthology 36 are poems, 14 of are anonymous and many others are by long dead bush poets such as Steel Rudd, Henry Lawson, C.J. Dennis and E.G. Murphy.

Easily the best work in the anthology is by Kenneth Cook of Wake In Fright fame. His short story “One Hundred Stubbies” especially, and “Snakes and Alcohol” and “The Drunken Kangaroo” are incredibly humorous and brilliantly written! Of more than passable note are the short stories “The Final Meeting of the Book Club” by Jacqueline Kent, “The Lobster and the Lioness” by Ernest O’Ferrall and “The Six O’clock Swells” by Frank Daniel.

Should the reader want to pursue it further, few acknowledgements are made of where the material first appeared. For instance, I had to google  to find out that Kenneth Cook’s “One Hundred Stubbies” was first published in his short story collection The Killer Koala (Sydney, Tortoiseshell Press, 1986, pages 29-36) which is out of print. 

Haynes is a successfully anthologiser of Australian writing but this is feel-good, tame stuff. No swearing, no drunks losing the plot- and consequently, no real insight into the contemporary culture of drinking in Australia. The small brewery hipster movement, alcohol and violence, illicit gambling and prostitution in Kings Cross in the 1970s and 1980s and the inane lock-out laws (recently overturned) totally unimbibed.

Look inside the book at Booktopia: https://www.booktopia.com.au/best-australian-drinking-stories-jim-haynes/book/9781760632908.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAiZPvBRDZARIsAORkq7dcT7maq6rnj9fi7orG1lZpPt3rSWzDNDAgfYgT3h9T8ElSuAU9kOAaAjFfEALw_wcB

Also discover my thoughts about Jim's amthology and how it helped shape my novel The Empty Glass, previously published by Alien Buddha Press, as well as links to blurbs about it here: https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2898768564399502953/8839712248849047931