Robert Duncan Drewe (born 9 January 1943) is an Australian journalist, novelist and short story writer. is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Life

Drewe was born in Melbourne, Victoria, but moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia at the age of 6. He was educated at Hale School, and in his final year was appointed School Captain. He stayed in Perth and had a job as a junior reporter with The West Australian from his late teens until his early twenties, when he got a job with The Age and moved back to Melbourne. He went on to be literary editor at The Australian before he turned to writing fiction. This article is about the Australian city; the name may also refer to City of Melbourne or Melbourne city centre (also known as The CBD). ... VIC redirects here. ... Location of Perth within Australia This article is about the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia. ... Slogan or Nickname: Wildflower State or the Golden State Other Australian states and territories Capital Perth Government Constitutional monarchy Governor Ken Michael Premier Alan Carpenter (ALP) Federal representation  - House seats 15  - Senate seats 12 Gross State Product (2005-06)  - Product ($m)  $107,910 (4th)  - Product per capita  $53,134/person... The West Australian (often simply called The West) is Perths only locally edited daily newspaper, and is owned by ASX-listed West Australian Newspapers Limited. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Australian is a national daily broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ...

He has twice been a winner of Walkley Awards for excellence in journalism. The Walkley Awards are an Australian journalism award given out annually. ...

In around 2001, Drewe moved to the far north New South Wales coast with his wife, writer/equestrian, Candida Baker, and their two children, partly to get "more writing done".^[1] NSW redirects here. ...

Works

The Shark Net

The Shark Net is a semi autobiographical/semi fictional account of Drewe's Childhood and adolescence and is best described as a memoir structured as a novel. It was reproduced as an ABC television miniseries. The name, shark net is a metaphor for the modus operandi of a character in the story, the serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke, whom Drewe met in his childhood and can also be interpreted to symbolize a false sense of security. As a literary genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning memory), or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography, although it is an older form of writing. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC is Australias national non-profit public broadcaster. ... A shark net is a submerged net placed around beaches to reduce the occurrence of interactions between sharks and swimmers. ... Modus operandi (often used in the abbreviated form MO) is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as mode of operation. ... Eric Edgar Cooke (25 February 1931–26 October 1964) was the last person to be hanged in Western Australia. ...

The book charts Drewe's life from his earliest memories of Melbourne to his childhood in Perth, education at Hale School and his relationship with his father who was a senior manager in the Dunlop rubber company. It includes growing up and coming-of-age themes and also themes to do with Eric Cooke, who was a Dunlop employee. Drewe fictionalises chapters of The Shark Net to do with Cooke, based upon his interviews with Cooke's family and his own experiences while reporting at his trial for The West Australian. People whose family name is or was Dunlop include James Dunlop (1793-1848), Scottish-Australian astronomer John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish inventor and founder of the Dunlop rubber company John Thomas Dunlop, United States administrator Sir Edward Weary Dunlop, Australian war hero Douglas Morton Dunlop, Scottish-American professor of history and...

The book is currently used as a Study text for the subject of English in high schools across the states of Victoria and Western Australia, including: Mount Eliza Secondary College, Mornington Secondary College, Camberwell Girls Grammar School, Newhaven College, Canterbury Girls' Secondary College, Mount Waverley Secondary College, The University High School, Preshil, Wesley College and St. Michael's Grammar in Melbourne, Victoria. Strathmore Secondary College, Xavier College, Vermont Secondary College (V-Town), Warrandyte (wazza) High School, Copperfield College, Canberra Grammar School, Guilford Young College in Hobart, Tasmania. Corpus Christi College, Mazenod College, Eltham High School, St Helena Secondary College, Hoppers Crossing Secondary College, Helena College and Christ Church Grammar School in Western Australia, Eynesbury Senior College, Xavier College and University Senior College in Adelaide, South Australia. The book is used as a reflection of the changes in lifestyle of the city of Perth. It is also on the booklist of the secondary education boards in other states. In the State of Victoria the book is studied as a context to meet the criteria for the VCE english Outcome 2 where text where the book is looked at to draw ideas for the theme of Whose reality. Mount Waverley Secondary College is a leading state secondary co-educational school located in the eastern suburb of Mount Waverley, in Melbourne, Australia. ... Preshil, or The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School, is an independent, non-denominational private school, in Melbourne, Australia. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Canberra Grammar School (CGS) is an independent, day and boarding school for boys in Red Hill, a suburb of Canberra, the capital of Australia. ... Guilford Young College is a Catholic senior secondary college, located in Hobart, Tasmania. ... Corpus Christi College could be Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College, Cambridge This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Christ Church Grammar School, informally known as Christ Church or CCGS, is an non-selective, Anglican, independent, day and boarding school for boys, situated in Claremont, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. ...

Grace

Grace is Drewe's novel about the start of the 21st century and the things that he is "passionately interested in ... relationships, politics, the environment, human rights ... and things that I believe are wrong and are changing the face of the Australia we used to respect".^[1] It was inspired, he said, by his anger at "our appalling treatment of asylum seekers, and those hapless illegal fishermen in flimsy boats".^[1] It has been described as part action thriller, part road movie.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Savage Crows (1976)
• A Cry in the Jungle Bar (1979)
• Fortune (1986)
• Our Sunshine (1991)
• The Drowner (1997)
• Grace (2005)

Short story collections

• The Bodysurfers (1983)
• The Bay of Contented Men (1989)
• Radiant Heat (1989)

As editor

• The Picador Book of the Beach (1993), (later The Penguin Book of the Beach)
• The Penguin Book of the City (1997)
• Best Australian Stories (2006)

Drama

• South American Barbecue (1991) [1]
• The Bodysurfers: The Play

Non-fiction

• Walking Ella (1999)
• The Shark Net (2000)

Notes

References

• Hawley, Janet "On fertile ground" in Good Weekend, July 23, 2005, pp. 38-

is the 204th day of the year (205th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Robert Drewe (Middlemiss Website)
• Penguin Books author profile
• Waldren, Murray (1996) Interview first published in The Australian Magazine] Accessed: 2007-10-11