Welcome to Historical Frictions, a historical fiction podcast.
This is a fortnightly podcast where we delve into the nitty-gritty of history, fiction, and everything in between, hosted by Hilary and Tess.
This week we discuss Holding the Man by Tim Conigrave, read by Tess.
To learn more about Tim and John’s story, the documentary Remembering the Man is available online, it is on Kanopy if you have institutional access or available to purchase. It uses the audio recordings from the 1993 interview with Tim, as part of the Australian Response to AIDS oral history project, which you can listen to yourself at the National Library of Australia as it is open to the public on request.
Both the writer and theatre company director who was involved with the adaptations have written about the experience and these are well worth a read.
Timothy’s own theatrical works can be purchased as well, and you can read a bit about him as a playwright here.
And if you are interested in the way Holding the Man portrays the AIDS response in Australia, start here.
There is plenty of information out there about Australia’s AIDS response, Tess would suggest:
This article by Graham Willett, “How we saved our lives: the gay community and the Australian response to AIDS”
Shirleene Robinson and Emily Wilson’s article in Social History of Medicine “Working Together? Medical Professionals, Gay Community Organisations and the Response to HIV/AIDS in Australia, 1983-1985”.
Dennis Altman is a famous gay Australian activist and writer, his book: Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation was published in 1971 and now has an anniversary edition, but he has also written on AIDS and gay communities. His book Power and Community: Organisational and Cultural Responses to AIDS is well worth a read (not just about Australia but it is included!).
Not specific to Australia, but Bertram Cohler’s book on gay memoir is interesting: Writing desire: sixty years of gay autobiography.
Some work on memoir as history:
https://www.janefriedman.com/memoir-trend/
Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (1998), by William Zinsser
The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading & Writing and Personal Narrative, by Thomas Larson,
Memoir: a history, by Ben Yagoda
The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing and Life by Marion Roach Smith
A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson
Memory in Memoir & Biography: Science, Place, and Agency by Johnathan E. Longo (Thesis, online)
Tess and Hilary would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land they live and work: Kaurna Country (Adelaide Plains) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Sydney), and pay our respects to the Elders both past and present.
