The Brilliant Boy
Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent
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The Brilliant Boy
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Narrated by:
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Gideon Haigh
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By:
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Gideon Haigh
About this listen
Longlisted for the 2022 Indie Book Awards
Chosen as a "Book of the Year" in The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, and The Australian Book Review.
In a quiet Sydney street in 1937, a seven-year-old immigrant boy drowned in a ditch that had filled with rain after being left unfenced by council workers. How the law should deal with the trauma of the family’s loss was one of the most complex and controversial cases to reach Australia’s High Court, where it seized the imagination of its youngest and cleverest member.
These days, "Doc" Evatt is remembered mainly as the hapless and divisive opposition leader during the long ascendancy of his great rival Sir Robert Menzies. Yet long before we spoke of "public intellectuals", Evatt was one: a dashing advocate, an inspired jurist, an outspoken opinion maker, one of our first popular historians and the nation’s foremost champion of modern art. Through Evatt’s innovative and empathic decision in Chester v the Council of Waverley Municipality, which argued for the law to acknowledge inner suffering as it did physical injury, Gideon Haigh rediscovers the most brilliant Australian of his day, a patriot with a vision of his country charting its own path and being its own example - the same attitude he brought to being the only Australian president of the UN General Assembly, and instrumental in the foundation of Israel.
A feat of remarkable historical perception, deep research, and masterful storytelling, The Brilliant Boy confirms Gideon Haigh as one of our finest writers of nonfiction. It shows Australia in a rare light, as a genuinely clever country prepared to contest big ideas and face the future confidently.
"Gideon Haigh has always been an exquisite wordsmith, and he proves here that he is also an intuitive historian and acute biographer with a masterful control of the broad sweep and telling detail." (AFR Books of the Year)
"Here is a master craftsman delivering one of his most finely honed works. Meticulous in its research, humane in its storytelling, The Brilliant Boy is Gideon Haigh at his lush, luminous best. Haigh shines a light on person, place and era with the sheer force of his intellect and the generosity of his words. The Brilliant Boy is simply a brilliant book." (Clare Wright, Stella-Prize winning author of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka)
"Gideon Haigh has a nose for Australian stories that light up the past from new angles, and he tells this one with verve, grace and lightly worn erudition. I couldn’t put it down." (Judith Brett, The Saturday Paper)
"An absolutely remarkable, moving, and elegant re-reading of the early life of an extraordinary Australian. Gideon Haigh is one of Australia's finest writers and thinkers...mesmerizing...one of the best Australian biographies I have read for a long time." (Michael McKernan, Canberra Times)
©2021 Gideon Haigh (P)2021 Simon & Schuster AudioWhat listeners say about The Brilliant Boy
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Cedric Hodges
- 03-01-2023
Gideon is a national treasure
Had no background and really enjoyed this. A touch prone to tangents and rhetorical flourish (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but very good.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Andrew Malin
- 11-11-2023
Wonderful
Wonderful analysis of a great and oft forgotten Australian. Humanity and the law is at times forgotten. I loved the background and judgment in Donoghue and also Grant (as I teach them). Maxi - just tears for the parents. The dissenting judgment!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 26-08-2022
The Brilliant Boy, a brilliant book.
For those with an interest in Australian History and particularly the development of Law and an empathetic society a must read (Listen). Uplifting and tragic.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Matthew Thomas McGirr
- 20-07-2024
Outstanding and moving encounter
Evatt comes alive in this impeccably written and researched account of one of Australia’s greatest jurists.
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- Mick
- 05-08-2021
Simply Brilliant
Beautifully written, beautifully narrated book about an under appreciated Australian and the contribution he made.
One of the best audiobooks I have listened to
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 19-02-2022
Forgotten Australian greats
This book illuminates the indisputable virtues of a much maligned australia giant of the legal world. It does not even touch on his achievments in convincing those in london and washington of the need to tangibly assist australia in its struggle in the darkest days of WW2.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-08-2021
A brilliant book!
An excellent and engaging story from start to finish. A nice interweaving of biographical detail with the progress of a very human story that found its way before the Courts. Highly recommended!
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- Anonymous User
- 26-10-2021
All students of law would do well to read it
An adept retelling of a critical development in Australian law providing much needed historical context where one is often lacking. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to fellow students and colleagues. Anyone who studies or has a general interest in law would do well to read this book, no matter their political persuasion or views on the man behind the great dissent in Chester v Waverley Council.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-11-2022
Doc Evatt and his times - fascinating
Early 20 century Australia brought to life,, political and legal figures vividly drawn and their actions examined. Above them all towered the Doc with his brilliance and imperfections.
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