Empty Glass Musings

 

Locals in Wollongong often ask me whether the cover of my collection of short stories The Empty Glass (Alien Buddha Press, 2020) by Pam'la was inspired by the nearby magnificent Bulli Heritage Hotel (1889): 

No, I tell them- although it could have been any of thousands of similarly built pubs across Australia, it was actually based on the Railway Hotel (1879) in Grenfell, New South Wales, which we visited in 2019. Grenfell is the spiritual home and birthplace of the vagabond, drunken literary Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) whose presence can be found throughout the town. In the book, I try to contemporise some of his wayward, larrikin spirit.

In Alien Buddha Press 21 I briefly explain the processes in creating The Empty Glass:

Between 2011 and 2015 I wrote about 50 short stories narrated by a young bar worker and aspiring poet Toby Mulheron. Most were written quickly and were initially intended to be segments of a loosely strung together Künstlerroman, about Toby’s artistic coming of age. The stories are set in Australian pubs and clubs and many originated from tales people in the industry had told me over many years. They are intended to provide social commentary on our drinking culture but also to ridicule it. 

 

I was experiencing difficulty putting the stories together in novel form. A key moment in propelling the book forward was when I came across Jim Hayne’s Best Australian Drinking Stories first in a podcast on ABC Radio & later in hard copy form in the local library. I wrote a review of the anthology on my blog Bold Monkey: 

https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2019/12/book-review-jim-haynes-best-australian.html

I found some of Hayne’s compilation highly entertaining but overall, the material was bland, highly unrealistic and terribly dated. Many of the stories nostalgically put on a pedestal the notion of the 6 O’Clock Swill, where pub goers would drink furiously before 6 pm, because by law, pubs had to shut by this time. This historical anachronism was abolished in New South Wales in 1955 and 1966 in Victoria. 

Hayne’s anthology is tame, feel-good stuff. No drunks losing the plot, no cuss words, no hint of uncontrolled gambling or drinking addictions, no sporting heroes stuffing up and certainly no sniff of domestic violence. I reckoned the stuff I was writing about pubs had its limitations but was far more honest, contemporary and interesting. I shot some stories Red’s way. 

In an edit of my manuscript for The Empty Glass, I reduced my short story count from 50 to 23. In starting the collection, I opted with short humorous stories and anecdotes. To get the reader in. And as the collection progressed, the tone would get increasingly darker. 

In terms of style, my primary aim is to create clear, graphic images in the head of the reader. I include heavy use of Australian dialogue to allow the reader to imagine they are flies on a pub wall. The narrator often speaks directly to the reader and uses detailed insider anecdotes of working in a pub or club to enhance the credibility of the storylines. 

In putting together the book I built on the tradition of the classic Aussie larrikin yarn with the Church of Bukowski. I was influenced by many texts; in particular by Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright (1961) and David Ireland’s The Glass Canoe (1976). 

I was greatly impressed by how these Australian writers were able to combine sparse, working class language with moments of great lyricism. 

I initially tested a few of my stories through small alternative hard-copy presses to see if they were publishable. You will find a few of the stories in publications, such as The Asylum Floor, Rust Belt Review and Alien Buddha Zine.

More recently, my story ‘Black Betty’ featured in Last Call Chinaski!: A Homage to 70 Years of Bukowski’s Influence on Culture & Writing (Lummox Press, 2020): https://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/ Set in King’s Cross, the story is an Aussie appropriation of one of Bukowki’s most famous narratives ‘The Fuck Machine’. 

Despite the crudity and sensationalism represented in The Empty Glass, I reckon there is also a literary quality which shapes the events and helps to uplift the book. I was horrified but also fascinated by what I saw in the pub & club industries- the gambling, the excessive levels of drinking, the ensuing violence, the misogyny, the lip-service to environmentalism- just to name a few targets. 

In creating these short stories, I worked on the transitions in many stories to add complexity and unpredictability as to how they were to unravel. The ‘Albino Bandicoot’, ‘Dizzy’s Family Hotel & Restaurant’ and ‘The Tips Jar’ are probably the best examples of this experimentation. The language may offend some readers. My response is that I’m merely recording how people talk in a work place which can be hostile, particularly when some fools have had far too much to drink. 

Buy the book here on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1704329604/ref=cbw_direct_from_1

Read some blurbs about the book: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2020/02/new-release-george-anderson-empty-glass.html