Books – ROSS McMULLIN

Books that bring Australia’s forgotten history to life

Life So Full of Promise: Further Biographies of Australia’s
Lost Generation

Above is the Murrumbidgee River at Soapworks Bend west of Hay in the Riverina, close to the former site of the soapworks where Tom Callaway worked. Tom’s son Norman is one of the main characters in Life So Full of Promise, and a photo of him is on the cover. Norman lived at Hay until his family moved to Sydney when he was 16.

Life So Full of Promise is Ross’s latest book and his second multi-biography about Australia’s lost generation of World War I.

Farewell, Dear People: Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation

This multi-biography retrieves the lives of ten Australians of outstanding potential who exemplify their nation’s lost generation of World War I.

Pompey Elliott at War:
In His Own Words

Rather than a comprehensive, life-and-times biography like Ross’s previous book on Pompey, this new book is Pompey in World War I in his own words.

Other books by Ross:

Praise for Life So Full of Promise

McMullin charts these three lives and deaths and their aftermath with extraordinary care and sensitivity. He reconstructs the social and political worlds that each inhabited through detailed descriptions of relationships, passions, and events …
The reconstruction of their lives sheds light not just on their special qualities but on so many other aspects of Australian history, from rural development to private education, the role of professions, industrial conflict, politics, religion, and sport. [The] biographies necessarily feature important insights into the role of women in peacetime families and communities as well as during the war … Ross McMullin is to be commended on another impressive contribution to Australian social history.

Raelene Frances

Australian Book Review