Moorhouse and The Angry Decade

Abstract

Frank Moorhouse's early writings, in particular the short story collections he termed "discontinuous narrative," 'Futility and Other Animals' (1969) and 'The Americans, Baby' (1972), are a contribution to the current of social and literary changes in Australia around the events of 1972, a year which "has become one of those dates that serve as shorthand reference to distinct periods or phases", according to Kiernan in his Introduction to 'The Americans, Baby'. Kiernan describes this year as "the culmination of the many changes that had been occurring throughout society during the Vietnam years", and lists the "confusing sense of social change at that time" as a product of "the increasing, if often resisted, tendency towards Americanization; conflicting responses to new international movements like conservation, combined with proclamations of a 'new nationalism' and calls for political change in the media; and, in the arts, celebrations but also critiques of a distinctive Australian culture". Moorhouse reveals the influence of the upheaval in, as John Mclaren terms it, "the angry decade"; he contributes to a legacy which "has ensured that Australians remain aware of what they have in common with the rest of the world, as well as what makes them distinct".