BIRMINGHAM'S LAST HURRAH

The man who made the falafel a best-seller has returned to low-life culture
for his latest book. John Birmingham explains why to Luke Benedictus.

Who is John Birmingham? His books present him as cyclonic, a gonzo
journalist dealing in danger, disaster and madness. Could this be the same
John Birmingham as the softly spoken man with thick stubble and a receding
hairline drinking tea in a Collins Street cafe?

Yes, it could, and it is. Birmingham, 38, is a family man, married to a
lawyer, two small children, and goes to the gym each day. He says the
other, hard-living image is inappropriate, but it doesn't bother him.

"I understand the workings of the machine," he explains, "And I know that
the fuel of publicity, celebrity and notoriety is just big piles of dried
bullshit. The idea of the author as crazed pirate is such a powerful image
that you're fooling yourself if you think that you can put that on and take
it off. At the age of 55, I'll still be getting student journalists coming
up to me wanting to smoke a cone, because that's the received wisdom."

His new book, Dopeland, is not about to discourage such invitations. The
book is a smoker's guide to Australia's marijuana culture, blending social
commentary, history and anecdotes about bong-smoking dogs.

Dopeland is a sort of return to Birmingham's first success, He Died With a
Felafel in His Hand, his bible of sharehouse living. Since then, Birmingham
has looked for various subjects, driven by the fear that "I would be
thought of as that Felafel guy for the rest of my life".

First came Leviathan, his brilliant, sprawling history of Sydney, which
looked away from the sparkling harbourfront to expose the city's muddier
undercurrents. Then, in an edition of Quarterly Essay, Appeasing Jakarta,
Birmingham criticised Australian foreign policy in East Timor. Lately, he
is analysing the new economy in The Australian Financial Review.

So after working so hard to escape felafel country, why return to familiar
ground with Dopeland and its reflections on stoner etiquette, daytime TV
and the erotic potential of Xena: Warrior Princess? He decided, he says,
partly from commercial motives and partly because he wanted a platform to
examine Government drug policy. He also welcomed "the opportunity to travel
around the country smoking dope and writing about it".

"I have six book contracts at the moment," he says. "My life has simply
moved to the point where I can't just pick up my swag and head off round
the country for six months, smoking dope and hanging out with freaks. It
was like one last hurrah for me."

Dopeland's form accurately reflects its content, with a digressive,
freewheeling narrative that drifts from the mechanics of the drug economy
to speculation about which malt whisky best complements a quiet reefer.
Birmingham writes that marijuana has become mainstream, almost respectable,
and is smoked by lawyers, policemen and even a prominent arch-conservative
politician.

Unfortunately, for readers, let alone the author, the lawyers have removed
quite a bit of potentially defamatory material. This has exasperated
Birmingham to the point where he is considering abandoning non-fiction.
"Dopeland is published as this wild, gonzo book, but it would be much
wilder if it was published in a place like the US," he says. "There is no
right to free speech in Australia. We go on with this palaver about what a
great, long-standing democracy we are. But there is no bill of rights.
There is no First Amendment. In my lower moments it does get me down to the
point where I think I'm going to give up non-fiction and just write airport
novels."

Birmingham is writing a trilogy of sci-fi thrillers for the US market. They
are "alternative history", a rejuvenated literary trend based on the "What
if . . .?" principle. The genre, Birmingham explains, was revived by US
historian Harry Turtledove, whose first series of books was based on the
premise of what would have happened in World War II, if Earth was suddenly
invaded by giant space lizards?

Contractually, Birmingham cannot reveal his premise, but he happily
recounts his inspiration. "I was sitting about with my friend talking about
dumb films we'd seen, dumb books we'd read and I said, 'I've got this idea
for the dumbest alternate history book ever'. The next thing I knew I had
the Americans on the phone throwing money at me."

Birmingham's own history is full of interesting turns. He was born in
Liverpool and when he was six emigrated to Australia with his parents. He
grew up in Ipswich, near Brisbane, and went to Queensland University, where
he experienced the share-house life that would later provide material for
Felafel.

After post-graduate study in international relations, Birmingham worked for
the Defence Department in Canberra, investigating organisations that posed
potential threats to national security.

He lasted nine months. Then, following some "very ill-informed and naive
ideas", he became a writer and moved to Sydney. "That was how I ended up in
my mid-to-late 20s living below the poverty line in Darlinghurst."

For the first three years he survived on stolen food-vouchers and the dole.
Gradually he began earning a living as a freelance journalist for magazines
including Rolling Stone, Penthouse and The Independent Monthly. Money was
always tight - Birmingham estimates the most he made in a year was $12,000.

His big break came when he was given a $2000 advance and six weeks to write
Felafel. He handed in the manuscript on the day before his 30th birthday.
The book has now sold more than 100,000 copies and still earns its author
money.

Two years ago, it was turned into a film by director Richard Lowenstein.
This was not a happy experience for Birmingham. After constant
disagreements over the script and concern about the direction the film was
heading, Birmingham - "in my extreme naivete" - asked for his name to be
taken off the credits. He says this decision subsequently cost him
$130,000. "I was really, really savagely pissed off," he remembers, "I
thought I'd blown my one and only shot at big rock candy mountain." These
days he is more philosophical. "I think they did a good job in making their
film. It just wasn't a film that I wanted to see."

It's strictly writing now. He is planning a book about fear in Australian
politics that will focus on incidents of national hysteria, comparing such
events as the Tampa refugees with the arrival of the Irish convicts in
1803. He is also working on a non-fiction title about a bayonet charge in
Crete during World War II; he likes the technical challenge of stretching a
two-minute event into a 60,000-word book. He is also editing a collection
of Australian reportage.

Birmingham sees his versatility as just doing his job. "I write for a
living," he says. "That could mean doing a profile on Kim Beazley or
writing about cricket.

"I have always been happy to work across a lot of different fields because
a lot of different things interest me. I don't really see myself as an
artist at all. Ten years of journalism knocked the stuffing out of any
artistic pretensions I may have had. I've always looked at writing as a
business rather than art. A lot of people would go to writing seminars
where established writers teach them how to use character or dialogue. I
used to go to small-business development seminars and learn how to move
product off the shelves."

Not that he's knocking them: he holds them himself. Birmingham is
writer-in-residence at the Queensland Writers Centre. He says, "There's a
bar downstairs. I often get them to set up one drink for each punter whose
hopes and dreams I've crushed."

With all the writing and teaching, something had to go: the dope. "I don't
have time," he says. "Besides, it was either Henry Kissinger or the Fonz
who once said, 'Once you have a reputation you don't have to live up to it
anymore.' "

John Birmingham talks about Australia's drug culture at the writers'
festival at 8pm next Saturday at the Malthouse, Sturt Street, Southbank.
Next Sunday he discusses Australia in Asia with Richard Woolcott,
Christopher Kremmer and Dewi Anngraenni at 10am at the Malthouse.