Virginia by Alan Smith

Virginia by Alan Smith

Virginia is an actor; she does not want this ordinary mess: she wants things formed in rehearsal, choreographed, with all the rough contingency of the everyday made good, no nagging doubt that we, our performance, could have been better. It is, in the end, performance: the love affair, the joke in the pub, the final, cutting, remark in an argument.
Dan upends it by dying inconveniently. She wants Dan to be dead and she wants him back. What should I do, she thinks, and she goes to the pub and out into the living world for drinks and dinner and work. And all this is a fine performance. Until she meets Hank.
Alan Smith, with a long list of books behind him, including How to be a Man and Her Majesty's Philosophers, is a master of dialogue who paints his characters with their own words drawing the reader into their stories, their anguish and their joy.

Alan Smith was born in Newcastle and attended Newcastle Boy's High School and The Armidale School. He graduated from the University of Newcastle with an Associate Diploma in Industrial Chemistry in 1952 and a Masters Degree in trade and economics in 1982. He joined the C M F in 1951 as a Recruit Gunner in R Battery, 21 Field Regiment, RAA in Newcastle and was commissioned in June 1954. During the years 1954-55, he served with the Royal Artillery's SP units in Bloomsbury, London, and the Royal Canadian Artillery in Toronto, Ontario. He was made major with the Regiment but continued his military service with the 2nd Battalion, RNSWR as Support Company commander. His military education led him to logistical staff postings in the HQs of Communication Zone and 8 Task Force after further training. In 1966, he received the Efficiency Decoration and retired in 1968. His third 'occupation' is writing artillery history as Assistant Editor and now Editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Artillery History Company, Cannonball. He was appointed to the Executive Staff of The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited in 1960 and occupied Personnel/Human Resource posts in Corporate, Steel and Wire Divisions during his 36 years of service to 1992.