Robert Drewe
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Robert Drewe is an Australian novelist who was born in Melbourne, Victoria, but moved with his family to Perth, Western Australia at the age of 6. He stayed in Perth and had a job as a junior reporter with The West Australian from his late teens until his early 20's, when he got a job with the Melbourne Age and moved back to Melbourne.
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[edit] The Shark Net
The Shark Net is a semi autobiographical/semi fictional account of Drewe's Childhood and adolescence and is best described as a memoir structured as a novel. It was reproduced as an ABC television miniseries. The name, shark net is a metaphor for the modus operandi of a character in the story, the serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke, whom Drewe met in his childhood.
The book charts Drewe's life from his earliest memories of Melbourne to his childhood in Perth and his relationship with his father who was a senior manager in the Dunlop rubber company. It includes growing up and coming-of-age themes and also themes to do with Eric Cooke, who was a Dunlop employee. Drewe fictionalises chapters of The Shark Net to do with Cooke, based upon his interviews with Cooke's family and his own experiences while reporting at his trial for The West Australian.
The book is currently used as a Study text for the subject of English in high schools across the state of Western Australia and at Canterbury Girls' Secondary College in Melbourne Victoria as a reflection of the changes in lifestyle of the city of Perth. It is also on the booklist of the secondary education boards in other states.
[edit] Bibiliography
[edit] Novels
- The Savage Crows (1976)
- A Cry in the Jungle Bar (1979)
- Fortune (1986)
- Our Sunshine (1991)
- The Drowner (1997)
- Grace (2005)
[edit] Short Story Collections
- The Bodysurfers (1983)
- The Bay of Contented Men (1989)
[edit] As Editor
- The Picador (later the Penguin) Book of the Beach (1993)
- The Penguin Book of the City (1997)
- Best Australian Stories 2006
[edit] Drama
- South American Barbeque (1990)
- The Bodysurfers: The Play
[edit] Non-fiction
- The Shark Net (2000)
- Walking Ella (1999)
