Wilding revisits career in the latest of his memoirs of the writing life.(Wild Amazement)(Book review)

Michael Wilding. Wild Amazement. Rockhampton, Qsld: Central Queensland UP (Outback Books), 2006. 175 pp. n.p. ISBN 1 876780 83 5

Michael Wilding's new book, Wild Amazement, continues the project launched with Wildest Dreams (1998), and according to an authorial note, is part of an ongoing work titled "Literary Pages." The present volume is being marketed as a "fictional memoir." The preceding volume was subtitled "A Selective Memoir."

A principal difference between the two books is that Wild Amazement is narrated in first person, while Wildest Dreams offers a third-person perspective, with the main focus a character named Graham, who also appears in some of Wilding's short stories. One such story is "Joe's Absence," that great text of authorial …