Thea Astley

In her flat above Drylands' newsagency, Janet Deakin is writing a book for the world's last reader.....

One family traced from the 1860s to the 1980s, beginning with Cornelius Laffey, an Irish-born journalist....

Leverson, the narrator at the centre of these stories, calls himself a "people freak" ....

Pompous, vain and a self-professed charmer, George Brewster moves from one unfulfilling journalism job to the next, one empty relationship to another, his faithful wife and daughter ever the afterthought.