If this could no longer be determined by titles and duties, properties and subservience, countesses and clowns, a kind of unrolling narrative had to evolve which was capable of asking all the psycho-political questions. And the genre has come a long way, has taken on many forms, along with many fields of information.
Modern fiction is full of frisky factions.
To nobody could these reflections be more appropriate than to Frank Moorhouse. From his early chain of short stories, The Americans, Baby , he has been asking awkward questions about the raw, chafed edge of public and intimate, in a shallowly modern world which calls for deep enquiry. A story like 'Del Goes into Politics' brings together the angry political divisions of the 1970s with a young woman's coarsely sexual awakening. From early on, Moorhouse chose to adopt a very plain prose style. He took on board the very dangerous influence of Hemingway and other American plainsmen, at best to good effect.