Cloudstreet by Tim Winton – Omen or Inspiration?

In May of 1992, I returned to Australia for a holiday from England, where I’d been living and working for several years. The local literary news at the time was all about the success of Tim Winton and his novel, Cloudstreet. I thought it an omen. Winton was thirty-one-years-old and I was thirty. He had grown up in Western Australia (WA) and so had I. He’d just won his second Miles Franklin Award and I’d just quit a job in England and was about to have a second crack at being a writer! The Shepherd’s Hut.

Among my mementos from this period, is a yellowed newspaper cutting from the Sydney Morning Herald, dated Wednesday, 27th May. Under the headline, “Winton finds selling words the hard part”, Winton, who was on a bookselling tour in America, confides, “Don’t let anyone tell you writing or winning awards is the hard work. This part, the promotion, is the hard work.”

My travel diary from back then also has several entries about Winton and Cloudstreet. On 7th June I went for an evening stroll along Bondi Beach and browsed in a bookshop where I found a copy of the book – though I merely commented, “Bought Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, a WA author.”

On 25th June, with family in Perth, WA, I wrote, “Didn’t sleep well overnight. Mind racing with Cloudstreet, my short story [I wrote short stories almost every day back then], England, the future and past, etc. etc.” On 28th June, my last night in Perth, I wrote, “Finished Cloudstreet. End of the book has a similar mystical feel to Ben Okri’s The Famished Road [the 1991 Man Booker Prize winner I read before Cloudstreet]. Doubt I’ll ever be able to write as well as either author. Still, hope springs eternal.” (Note to latter-day self: must stop using cliches!)