A man’s got to have a hobby – William McInnes

Suzie Eisfelder

I’ve followed William McInnes on TV for quite a while now and his face and voice have become quite familiar to me and I recall being quite interested when I saw him being interviewed about his book. It was a great interview and I had to stop whatever I was doing to watch it properly; he was very entertaining. When I saw his book in the op shop I decided it was time to find out if the book was as entertaining as he was.

This is about his father, their relationship together and included a lot about his siblings and mother. They all seem quite intriguing characters and made me feel like I wished I’d grown up with them. It seemed like quite an idyllic childhood with a father who talked to the people on the TV and a mother who bashed out tunes on the car horn. With parents like that it would be hard not to grow up with a rather quirky attitude. McInnes grew up in Redcliffe, Queensland during the time of Sir “Joh” Bjelke-Petersen. He is married to director, Sarah Watt; you might have seen him in Blue Heelers or Sea Change.

I do like his style of writing, it is very friendly and open while containing a massive amount of information. He starts off in the present with a yarn about what he’s doing and uses that as a springboard to delve back into the past to show us a number of anecdotes connected with whatever he’s doing, finally connecting the dots back to finish the yarn about the present. In the first part he’s looking for a phone number and describing the room where the phone is meant to be which in turn takes him back into the past to describe some neighbours, his parents, his siblings and their interesting meal times and finally takes us full circle, back into the present back into the room where he’s searching for the phone number. He hasn’t managed to find the phone number as he’s been totally distracted and eventually just puts the search to one side to go outside and look at the house with just time enough for another anecdote and a meeting with an old neighbour. It’s a fabulous method of writing and I loved reading the book and watching him do this time and time again.

Warnings:
Swear words
Sex references
Laughter which may happen explosively at any time.


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