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incrediblemelk 's review for:
Double Dissolution: Heartbreak and Chaos on the Campaign Trail
by Lee Zachariah
This was an awkward book to read because I know the author and the end of his marriage forms the structure for this political travelogue. It's a framework that both shapes and limits what he observes here, although Zachariah's ex-wife has almost no presence in this book, appearing only as wisps of memory and lost everyday habits. She's basically just the reason why he's become a shell of a man who embarks on a manic journey around Australia in the hope of filling that emptiness somehow.
For me the book succeeds best on the level of travel: you can sense Zachariah relaxing on the road, that liminal nowhere-space in which you don't have to think about your regular life. I also appreciated the grubby artefacts of being away from home: looking up directions on your phone; plugging into random power points when you run out of battery; wearing stale shabby clothes when you're trying to be professional. There are some bittersweet moments when Zachariah tries to reconnect with key places and people from his past, only to find them never quite meeting up with his expectations.
The political commentary was lively – I enjoyed the use of footnotes as well – and there were some enjoyably observed moments on the campaign trail from an outsider's perspective, but the book felt light on substance. Perhaps that's because I was reading this in December, some months after the 2016 federal election and after the disastrous election of Donald Trump in the US. How pathetic and provincial the Australian political scene is. The stakes are so low and the media narratives are so impoverished. Zachariah is an outsider, but being an insider seems like a shit job that's just as bad.
As Zachariah follows the campaign, he's searching for some meaning within it that just never arrives – and it's telling that the ordinary people and the minor-party politicians he encounters are much more interesting than the major party machine men and women. The book left me feeling kind of flat but maybe the aim was to make me feel a little bit of Zachariah's own malaise?
For me the book succeeds best on the level of travel: you can sense Zachariah relaxing on the road, that liminal nowhere-space in which you don't have to think about your regular life. I also appreciated the grubby artefacts of being away from home: looking up directions on your phone; plugging into random power points when you run out of battery; wearing stale shabby clothes when you're trying to be professional. There are some bittersweet moments when Zachariah tries to reconnect with key places and people from his past, only to find them never quite meeting up with his expectations.
The political commentary was lively – I enjoyed the use of footnotes as well – and there were some enjoyably observed moments on the campaign trail from an outsider's perspective, but the book felt light on substance. Perhaps that's because I was reading this in December, some months after the 2016 federal election and after the disastrous election of Donald Trump in the US. How pathetic and provincial the Australian political scene is. The stakes are so low and the media narratives are so impoverished. Zachariah is an outsider, but being an insider seems like a shit job that's just as bad.
As Zachariah follows the campaign, he's searching for some meaning within it that just never arrives – and it's telling that the ordinary people and the minor-party politicians he encounters are much more interesting than the major party machine men and women. The book left me feeling kind of flat but maybe the aim was to make me feel a little bit of Zachariah's own malaise?