October 2020
Magazine
The Monthly Essays
Melbourne in the time of pandemic
Case studies of systemic failure in Victoria’s fight against coronavirus
A NSW community questions whether last summer’s catastrophic bushfire was inevitable
So what is MMT and why should you care?
The life of a great Australian songwriter
The Nation Reviewed
Scott Morrison is good at promising but not at delivering
Bryan Dawe on life without John Clarke
If Footscray Primary’s Vietnamese program ends, what else is lost?
Arts & Letters
American democracy is documented in all its gangly, acne-mottled glory
In our nature: ‘Vesper Flights’
Helen Macdonald explores how the study of animals reveals unknown aspects of ourselves
‘First Take’, released 50 years ago, still echoes through the present
Noted
‘The Time of Our Lives’ by Robert Dessaix The memoirist’s latest, surprisingly unsettling instalment
‘The Lying Life of Adults’ by Elena Ferrante The Neapolitan author returns to characters driven by compulsions and tensions of class
In Light of Recent Events
By Oslo Davis
We now cross to the / Press conference. Handily / Abridged in haiku.
