An Australian journalist attends a party in Rome, the Eternal City. The result is at once a celebration and a distillation of what travel can be and still is: an intelligent, hilarious, and sometimes prickly conversation between cultures.
With finesse, Antoni Jach affectionately lampoons everything from the publishing world and the writing life to relationships, his beloved hometown Melbourne, and the often-pompous nature of national pride.
Erudite and amusing, A Midsummer Party is both a revelation, a romp and a penetrating reflection on the intersection of art and our own human foibles.
Praise:
‘A party turns into a palace of storytelling. Around the unnamed artist-narrator, characters – comic, self-absorbed, ambitious, lost – approach and depart. Snapshots of vanished Australia and enchanted Italy depict the poignancy of memory, its inevitable twinning with self-confabulation and self-departure. Comic, compassionate, brilliantly composed, a travelling companion for the imagination.’ PAUL CARTER
‘Antoni Jach reveals travel as a vehicle for the psyche, a sort of time travel machine. I loved this book, the sense of philosophy that underpins everything it has to say. In the future I will travel with a greater sense of the magical.’ VIRGINIA PETERS
‘Beneath this story, as people come and go, talking of Michelangelo and other topics, lies a tale of subtle philosophical depth. A Midsummer Party brings to mind the films of Fellini or Sorrentino. It is delightful, beguiling, entertaining, and thought-provoking.’ PAUL MORGAN
Contemporary, Literary
About The Author
Antoni Jach is a novelist, painter and playwright.
His previous novels are: Travelling Companions, Napoleon’s Double, The Layers of the City and The Weekly Card Game. He is also the author of a book of poetry, An Erratic History.
He has worked as a lecturer at RMIT University, as a freelance journalist and, briefly, as a micro-press publisher.
He was born in Melbourne and grew up in Panton Hill.
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