The Far Side of the Moon and Other Stories

Jana Wendt, the much-loved Gold Logie superstar of TV journalism for nearly three decades, feature writer and role model for young career women, has now turned her hand to fiction.

In ‘Bits and Pieces’, an artist talks about his long life: ‘Let me tell you, my friend, journalists ask some very stupid questions.’ In ‘Fame and Nothingness’, a once celebrated journalist calls into a talkback program about meeting Nelson Mandela. In ‘The Stamp of History’, Ada and Albert live through the dark days of Europe. In the opening story, Ludmilla is about to discover an entirely new side to her husband.

Wendt’s stories are polished and exuberant, rich with distinctive voices and precise details. Her characters grapple with fortune and misfortune, with memories of lives in interesting times. Couples are betrayed and redeemed. There are heart-stopping monologues and witty exchanges between friends and rivals. Tragedies alternate with enduring love.

In The Far Side of the Moon, Jana Wendt brings to life a brilliant parade of people, living in a world we instantly recognise.

Jana Wendt is a journalist and writer. Her feature writing has appeared in a broad range of publications and she has worked for every Australian television network as a senior reporter and presenter, and as a contributing correspondent for the American CBS Network’s 60 Minutes. Wendt has interviewed many key newsmakers, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Muammar Gaddafi, Henry Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, Benazir Bhutto, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Yasser Arafat. In the arts, her subjects have included pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim; opera star Cecilia Bartoli; writer Norman Mailer and jazz diva Cleo Laine. Jana Wendt has published two books of non-fiction. The Far Side of the Moon is her first book of fiction.

'A masterfully wrought series of portraits: wise, elegant and surprising.' Amanda Lohrey, Miles Franklin Award-winning author of The Labyrinth

‘An appealing blend of wistfulness and playful bemusement...Readers will take pleasure...in the volume’s running themes – particularly the puzzles it constructs from the different kinds of truth, and the opposing strategies deployed to uncover them, in journalism and fiction.’ Age

‘An elegant collection, sometimes delightful, funny, and always observant of the human condition via the smallness of everyday lives.’ Guardian