Stella
Prize long-listed author Sonya Voumard’s Skin
in the Game is original, incisive, and hugely entertaining.
The daughter of a European refugee mother and a
journalist father, Voumard recounts with aplomb her passionate but questioning
relationship with journalism and the nature of the interview. There’s a
disastrous 1980 university encounter with Helen Garner which forms the seed for
her fascination with the dynamics of the interview and culminates in her
connecting again with Garner more than three decades later to work out what
went so wrong. There are the insights of a career played out against the changing nature of
journalism including the author’s time as a Canberra correspondent. And there
are revealing and tender portraits of Kings Cross, of growing up in suburban
Melbourne, her father’s love of journalism, and a family journey to the
Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre where her mother’s Australian life began.
Throughout
it all Voumard is a sharpshooter, never afraid to hold a mirror up to her own
life and practices as a journalist, to dig deep into the ethics of journalism
and the use of power, and to sensitively explore the intertwined nature of life
and work and personal relationships. The writing is at turns sharp, funny,
direct, strong, and affectionate.
‘I’ve immense admiration for how
Sonya Voumard so deftly wields a writer’s scalpel, both on her subjects and
herself. Together, these dispatches provide a fascinating insider’s account of
Australian journalism and a forensic look into the myriad pitfalls involved in
telling people’s stories.’ Benjamin Law, author of The Family Law and Gaysia
