peteg's blog - noise - books - 2026 06 10 TonyBirch ThePromise

Tony Birch: The Promise. (2014)

Wed, Jun 10, 2026./noise/books | Link

Kindle. A collection of shorts. The writing is flat, very occasionally amusing. The stories are mostly straightforward: the early ones are guillotined and not satisfying but the later ones seem more fully realised. Much of it is very Melbourne. None are surprising or push the boundaries of conceptualising Australia: more nostalgic than imaginative, down in the dirt with the Paul Kelly classics. Birch reads like an urbanite (a Fitzroy boy), familiar with a variety of interpersonal violences but with a limited grasp of the countryside.

Goodreads.