If you haven’t read Jimmy Barnes’ two-volume autobiography Working Class Boy: A memoir of running away and Working Class Man: A memoir of running out of time, you’re missing out. Barnes’ writing style, stories, background, dry sense of humour and the fact that he never once puts himself on any kind of pedestal resonates strongly with this reviewer, especially as both of us hail from European immigrant families. This new book is certainly a different creature from his first two. Highways and Byways: Tall tales and short stories from the long way round is a collection of stories from the distant past, recent present (for instance, his well-publicised trips to hospital) and a handful of stories in which he isn’t there, instead writing about a character or characters from the perspective of a detached author.
As Mark ‘Chopper’ Read famously said, “never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn” and, in this book’s introduction, Barnes mentions that some stories blur fact and fiction, and it’s up to us to “try to figure out which ones are which”.
Sometimes Highway and Byways feels like a bit of a director’s cut from the first two books. Stories we’ve heard before are told from either slightly different viewpoints or expanded on; for instance, the chapter ‘The Texas Tornado Jam’. While this is not necessarily negative, it does prompt the occasional sense of déjà vu. Sometimes this works very well; an example is one of the later chapters, ‘The Little Brick House’, which is like a mixture of director’s cut edit and a contemporary reflection on his first book, taking us back to the pages of Working Class Boy and him telling us of the book’s exorcising effects on his demons during the years since he wrote it. Like a lot of Barnes’ best writing, it’s potent in its conversational tone.
There are some excellent stories here, such as ‘The Crystal Radio’, which will surely resonate with anyone who needed to creep around their parents’ house as a child, ‘Shirley Knott’, a tale of the life of a drag queen on Sydney’s Oxford Street and ‘Last Man Standing’, a very humorous tale of Barnes’ first attempt at meditation. It has a classic line of Barnes-style humour. After his wife Jane basically “pleaded” with him to try meditation, he went away and thought to himself, “yeah OK I’ll do it”, especially because “it might be good for Jane, as clearly something in her life was stressing her out” (it’s him).
‘The Singer and the Superstar’ is also a fun chapter, one in which Barnes does not feature (or does he?). It may be one of the tall tales. It’s an entertaining read because if you’re familiar with a few singers, stars and directors in Australia, you can try to guess who these unnamed characters are.
The last two chapters bring the book to a satisfying close, the penultimate one delivering a few good laughs, and the last one is contemplative and optimistic.
Perhaps the biggest difference between this book and Barnes’ first two is that his biography was tales of struggle after struggle, demon after demon, threat after threat. He is now successful and happily married, and by God he deserves it after what he’s been through, but the tone here is different. This book weaves around delving in his past, giving anecdotes of his current life as well as telling stories that are not autobiographical in nature.
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It’s an entertaining mix, and more than once he reminds us that his demons are still there, seemingly forever lingering in his psyche, sometimes jumping to the forefront when triggered by a single sight, sound or smell.
Perhaps the chapters without Barnes in them are foretelling his literary future – perhaps a novel is on the way. If so, that’s something to look forward to.
Highways and Byways: Tall tales and short stories from the long way round, Jimmy Barnes
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
ISBN: 9781460766729
Pages: 320pp
Format: Hardback
RRP: $45
Publication date: 16 October 2024
Jimmy Barnes will be discussing the book as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival on 10 May at the Athenaeum Theatre.
