JON CLEARY
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**Jon Cleary (1917-)**
Australian popular novelist, a natural storyteller, whose career as a writer extends over nearly 60 years. Cleary's books have sold some 8 million copies. Often Cleary's stories are set in exotic locations all over the world or in some interesting historical scene of the 20th century, such as the Nazi Berlin of 1936. Cleary has also written perhaps the longest running homicide detective series of Australia. Its sympathetic protagonist, Inspector Scobie Malone, was introduced in The High Commissioner (1966). Dilemma, published in 2000, was Scobie's 16th appearance. Although Cleary's books can be read as efficiently plotted entertainment, he has occasionally touched psychological, social, and moral dilemmas inside the frame of high adventure.
"Cathleen sighed. Though a woman, she was continually amazed at the blind faith of women. She was not a cynic, just someone who had learned from her experiences. 'Honey, men will rarely admit anything to themselves about women, except to abuse us. They're afraid of us, most of them. Even the ones who belt the hell out of us. Especially them." (from City of Fading Light, 1985)
Jon Stephen Cleary was born in Sydney, New South Wales, into a working class family as the eldest of seven children. He was educated at the Marist Brothers school in Randwick, New South Wales. After leaving school in 1932, at the age of fourteen, he spent the following 8 years out of work or in odd jobs, such as a commercial traveler, bush worker - "I had more jobs than I can now remember," he later said. Before the war he was interested in the career of commercial artists, but he also wrote for amateur revues. In 1940 he joined the Australian Army and served in the Middle East and New Guinea. During these years Cleary started to write seriously, and by the war's end he had published several short stories in magazines. His radio play, Safe Horizon (1944), received a broadcasting award.
Cleary's These Small Glories (1945), a collection of short stories, was based on his experiences as a soldier in the Middle East. In 1946 Cleary married Joy Lucas, whom he had met on a sea voyage to England. His first novel, You Can’t See Round Corners (1947), won the second prize in The Sydney Morning Herald’s novel contest. It was later made into a television serial and then into a feature film. The Graham Greene-ish story of a deserter who returns to Sydney showed Cleary's skill at describing his home city, its bars, and people living on the margin of society.
Cleary worked as a journalist for Government of Australia News and Information Bureau in London in 1948-49 and in New York from 1949 to 1951. His most famous book, Sundowners, appeared in 1951, and has sold more than three million copies. The story was set in the 1920s, and told of a drover, Paddy Carmody. He travels from job to job in a horse-drawn wagon with his wife and son. Paddy refuses to settle down, give up drifting in the Australian bush, and live the stable life. In 1960 Fred Zinnemann directed a first-rate film based on the book, staring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. It was shot on location by Jack Hildyard. The Green Helmet (1957), filmed in 1959, was a motor racing thriller. Justin Bayard (1955) has been called an Australian Western. In The Climate of Courage (1954) Cleary returned his war experiences, and depicted a number of soldier, who enjoy a break in Sydney and then are sent to a bloody combat in New Guinea with the Japanese.
The award-winning Peter's Pence (1974) was about an IRA conspiracy to kidnap the Pope. High Road to China (1977), filmed in 1983 and starring Tom Selleck, was a lighthearted adventure tale of Eve Tozer, a spoiled heiress, and O'Malley, a flyer, on their tangled way from London to China to rescue Eve's father. City of Fading Light (1985), set in Berlin in the summer of 1936, mixed historical and fictional people. Cathleen O'Dea has come from Hollywood to Germany to star in a film - and trace her missing mother. Among other characters are Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and a notorious womanizer, Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, and Sean Carmody from Sundowners. A subplot deals with an assassination plan - the target is Hitler. The plot parallels The Bear Pit (1999), published before the Olympics in Sydney in 2000, but the target was the Premier. As usual, Cleary researched carefully for the work - in an interview he has confessed that ''half the pleasure of writing for me has been the research." This time his sources included William L. Shirer's acclaimed The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) and contemporary newspapers and magazines - some of the news items appear on the pages of the novel.
Scobie, named after legendary jockey Scobie Beasley, appeared first time in The High Commissioner, in which the opening is ingenious: "'We want you to go to London,' said the Premier, 'and arrest the High Commissioner for murder.'" Before Jon Cleary (and the Swedish team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö), most urban police procedurals in the 1950s and 1960s were set in London or a few major American cities. In the classic tradition of detective fiction Cleary has used the character of Scobie, an honest cop and a family man with rigid principles, as his mouthpiece. During the years the author has nostalgically recorded the disappearance of old values and commented on social issues, such as racism in Pride's Harvest (1991) and Dragons at the Party (1987), family problems, business, politics, changing values, feminism, homosexuality in Different Turf (1996), race relations with the Aborigines. However, Cleary has that "I am not interested in 'messages', but I do like to sneak in comments as long as they don't hold up the narrative." Cleary's four-book sequence - Dark Summer (1992), Bleak Spring (1993), Autumn Maze (1994), and Winter Chill (1995) - looked at the changing face of Sydney and changing family practices.
In Five Ring Circus (1998), in which an investor in Olympic Tower is gunned down in a restaurant, and Dilemma (2000), which spins together two murder cases, Cleary criticized the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Ordinary family life was juxtaposed with Scobie's work in Autumn Maze (1994), starting with the murder of a morgue attendant. Pride's Harvest (1991) took Scobie to the country town of Collamundra, where he faces political intrigue, racism, and corruption of the establishment. When an important Japanese industrialist becomes the murder victim, suspicion falls first on a scapegoat Aborigine. However, Scobie is free from prejudice, and proceeds his own way.
Cleary's books have been translated into some ten languages, including Finnish and Swedish. He has lived outside Australia for extended periods and worked in films and television in the United States and Britain. Several of his books have been made into feature films. Among Cleary's awards are Australian Broadcasting Commission prize for radio drama in 1944, the Australian Literary Society’s Crouch Medal for Best Australian Novel in 1950, the Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1974, and Australian Crime Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.
For further reading: Contemporary Popular Writers, ed. by Dave Mote (1997); St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers, ed. by Jay P. Pederson (1996); World Authors 1950-1970, ed. by John Wakeman (1975) - For further information: Jon Cleary: Character builder - Jon Cleary - Love and loathing: a tale of two cities - Dilemma by Jon Cleary - Scobie Malone mysteries: The High Commissioner (1966); Helga's Web (1970); Ransom (1973); Dragon's at the Party (1987); Now and Then, Amen (1988); Babylon South (1989); Murder Song (1990); Pride's Harvest (1991); Dark Summer (1992); Bleak Spring (1993); Autumn Maze (1994); Winter Chill (1995); A Different Turf (1996); Endpeace (1998); Five-Ring Circus (1999); Dilemma (2000); The Bear Pit (2000); Yesterday's Shadow (2001)
Selected works:
radio play: Safe Horizon, 1944
These Small Glories, 1946
You Can't See Round Corners, 1947 - television series 1967, starring Rowena Wallace, Ken Shorter, Carmen Duncan; film 1969, prod. by Universal and ATN
The Long Shadow, 1949
You, the Jury, 1950
Just Let Me Be, 1950
The Sundowners, 1951 - film 1960, dir. by Fred Zinnemann, starring Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Glynis Johns, Peter Ustinov
The Climate of Courage, 1954 (U.S. title: Naked in the Night)
Justin Bayard, 1955 (U.S. title: Dust in the Sun) - film 1958
television play: Just Let Me Be, 1957
The Green Helmet, 1957 - film 1961, dir. by Michael Forlong, starring Bill Travers, Ed Begley, Sidney James
Back of Sunset, 1959
screenplay: The Siege of Pinchgut, 1959 (with Harry Watt and Alexander Baron)
Dust in The sun, 1960
North from Thursday, 1960
television play: Bus Stop series, 1961 (12 episodes)
The Country of Marriage, 1962
Forests of the Night, 1963
A Flight of Chariots, 1963
Pillar of Salt, and Other Stories, 1963
The Fall of an Eagle, 1964
The High Commissioner, 1966 (also: Nobody Runs Forever) - film 1968, dir. by Ralph Thomas, starring Christopher Plummer, Rod Taylor, Lilli Palmer
The Pulse of Danger, 1966
The Long Pursuit, 1967
Season of Doubt, 1968
Remember Jack Hoxie, 1969
Helga's Web, 1970 - film 1975: Scobie Malone, dir. by Terry Ohlsson, starring Jack Thompson, Judy Morris, Shane Porteous
Ask of the Andes, 1971
Mask of the Andes, 1971 (U.S. title The Liberators)
Man's Estate, 1972 (U.S. title: The Ninth Marquess)
Man's Estate, 1972
Ransom, 1973
Peter's Pence, 1974 - Ryöstö Vatikaanissa
screenplay: Sidecar Racers (Sidecar Boys), 1975
The Safe House, 1975 - Jäljissä kuoleman varjo
A Sound of Lightning, 1976
Vortex, 1977
High Road to China, 1977 - film 1983, dir. by Brian G. Hutton, starring Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston - suom. Vihreän härän jumala
The Beaufort Sisters, 1979
A Very Private War, 1980
The Faraway Drums, 1981
The Golden Sabre, 1981
Spearfield's Daughter, 1982
The Phoenix Tree, 1984 - Feenikspuu
television play: Spearfield's Daughter, 1985
The City of Fading Light, 1985
Dragon's at the Party, 1987
Now and Then, Amen, 1988
Babylon South, 1989
Murder Song, 1990
Pride's Harvest, 1991
Dark Summer, 1992
Bleak Spring, 1993
Autumn Maze, 1994
Winter Chill, 1995
A Different Turf, 1996
Endpeace, 1998
Five-Ring Circus, 1999
Dilemma, 2000
The Bear Pit, 2000
Yesterday's Shadow, 2001
