Robert Forster, frontman of the Go-Betweens, knows how to write music and how to write about it. Beyond his contribution to one of Brisbane’s greatest cultural exports, he also penned Grant & I, a moving memoir of his decades-long songwriting partnership with Grant McLennan, and plenty of excellent music criticism for the Monthly. It’s disappointing then, and a bit surprising, that his foray into fiction at the age of 68, a caper about musicians, music and music-making, hits such a dud note.
Songwriters on the Run, set in 1991 in central Queensland, follows Mick Woods and Drew Lovelock, two long-maned “rock-star-wrecked handsome” men in their 30s. After some international tours and two albums – “a kind of seventies folk-rock sound” – they’ve found some critical acclaim. Their hopes of the stratosphere risk being dashed, however, when police catch them with a bag of weed and charge them with credit card fraud and driving a stolen car. Mick and Drew are bungled off to a correctional facility but soon spring out, aided by some oddly helpful inmates, and get running.
