Ross McMullin on “Life So Full of Promise”

An event with Ross McMullin is always much anticipated.  Ross is an award-winning historian and biographer, a renowned storyteller, an entertaining speaker, and a longstanding RHSV member.

His multi-biography Farewell, Dear People was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and in his new sequel Life So Full of Promise, Ross has again combined prodigious research and narrative flair in a collection of interwoven family stories about forgotten Australians who had radiant potential.

The rich cast of characters in Life So Full of Promise includes a popular doctor, a brilliant cricketer (Ross played first-grade District cricket in Melbourne), and an exceptionally talented barrister who was a potential prime minister.

With their families and friends also conspicuous in the narratives, Life So Full of Promise is a revealing window into this defining era for Australia. It illuminates what the war was like at home and at the sharp end. Life So Full of Promise emulates Farewell, Dear People in providing insights into the experiences of Australians before, during and after the war, whether they were combatants or civilians, or soldiers’ wives or parents.                                           

Life So Full of Promise has been shortlisted for the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award. Barry Jones reviewed the book in The Age: “His scholarship is impeccable, he writes like an angel … and his narrative gift is Blaineyesque”.

Ross’s books, including Life so Full of Promise, are available through the RHSV bookshop.