Anything Can Happen

anything can happen is a memoir from a prize-winning Australian author. Funny, heartbreaking, it has exactly the arc of a good story. Among a slice of social history of Sydney's inner west, there's a farm in Victoria, a rural lesbian subculture, Mardi Gras, the pleasures of teaching writing, and flashbacks to the working-class fishing culture of Stockton (Newcastle) in the 1960s and 70s.

Juxtaposition is her gift, as is the very natural speaking voice. With the eye of a poet, and someone who has experienced it all, straight and married, gay and married, mother, friend, lover, writer, this is a raw and truthful account of a life lived fully.

It's the sort of writing Hampton excels at. There's no-one else I know who can hit that dry, droll, edgy note and conjure place and time and character and the random nature of memory and story-telling.

-Kim Mahood