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  • Published: 3 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781925324723
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:

Albanese

Telling It Straight




An updated edition of the personal story behind the very public political face of Labor’s Anthony Albanese.

Anthony Albanese has been at the heart of Labor politics in Australia for a decade. For the previous decade he persistently worked to ensure that the Labor left was a vital part of all ALP activities. This is his story. The turbulent years of federal politics with a deeply personal dimension, this is the whole story of Anthony Albanese and the remarkable mother, Maryanne, who raised him.

Anthony learned his political craft among the tough men and women of NSW Labor, inheriting his mother’s devotion to social justice, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the party his family had served for three generations.

ALBANESE: Telling it Straight reveals what shaped the bloke they call ‘Albo’, his climb through politics by playing hard, fast and sometimes loose and how as he and his colleagues wrestled with Labor’s future, he discovered his own past.

Now with additional material.

  • Published: 3 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781925324723
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $30.00
Categories:

About the author

Karen Middleton

Journalist Karen Middleton is Chief Political Correspondent for The Saturday Paper. Her first book, An Unwinnable War - Australia in Afghanistan was published in 2011. Previously Chief Political Correspondent for SBS Television, Karen has worked in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1989 and served as its president for four years. Karen is an experienced television, radio and newspaper commentator, appearing regularly on ABC TV’s political talk show Insiders. She is a freelance contributor to ABC radio, Monocle24 Radio UK and Radio New Zealand and is based in Canberra.

Praise for Albanese

I think it’s almost impossible to overstate the influence of those early years on Albo.

Bob Hawke

He's put his hand up and been a great club man, and he has served his country with the same selfless passion.

Russell Crowe

Anthony Albanese got lucky with Karen Middleton, who has crafted an account of his life that is both gripping and moving – words not usually associated with the genre of political biography. Central to his story is the gutsy Maryanne Albanese, who raised him as a single mother in working-class Camperdown. Growing up in this staunchly Labor environment, Albanese went on to become a political firebrand at university and later found a father substitute in Tom Uren. But it is his belated search for his real father that makes Albanese an unexpected page-turner. While his personal story overshadows his political rise, it successfully elicits the reader's sympathy and respect.

Fiona Capp, The Sydney Morning Herald

Karen Middleton is a great journalist and tells the story beautifully.

Lisa Wilkinson, TODAY show

A fascinating read

Michelle Grattan, The Conversation

Middleton’s detailed evocation of the whole social milieu in which he grew up is itself an important contribution to our understanding of the contemporary political divide. Its strengths are in the portrayal of intersecting political and social worlds, and here it invites a revitalised debate about how the terms of the relationship between those worlds have changed over the past two generations.

Jane Goodall, Inside Story

A fascinating mixture of two stories.

Bob Hawke

Discover more

Book List
Political lives

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Article
DJ Albo in the house

Karen Middleton’s Albanese drops by the intersection of politics and music.