Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), '' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) and ''The Clowns of God'' (1981). His books were published in 27 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies. West's works were often focused on international politics and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in international affairs. In ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' he described the election and career of a Slav as Pope, 15 years before the historic election of Karol Wojtyła as

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

. The sequel, ''The Clowns of God'', described a successor Pope who resigned the papacy to live in seclusion, 32 years before the abdication of

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the soverei ...

in 2013.

Early life

West was born in St Kilda, Victoria, the son of a commercial salesman. Due to the large size of his family, he was sent to live with his grandparents. He attended the

Christian Brothers College, St Kilda , motto_translation = Virtue Alone Is Noble , established = , type = Independent secondary school , religion = Roman Catholic , denomination = Christian Brothers , trust ...

where he was awarded the prize of Dux by Archbishop

Daniel Mannix Daniel Patrick Mannix (4 March 1864 – 6 November 1963) was an Irish-born Catholic bishop. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years and one of the most influential public figures in 20th-century Australia. Early years and Mayno ...

in 1929. At the age of 14, West entered the Christian Brothers seminary at St Patricks in Strathfield, Sydney, "as a kind of refuge" from a difficult childhood. In 1934 he began teaching at St Thomas's Primary School, Lewisham, living in that community until 1936. He taught at schools in Tasmania and New South Wales between 1937 and 1939, while also studying at the University of Tasmania. He left the Christian Brothers order in 1940, unable to follow a celibate lifestyle. He worked as a salesman and a teacher.

War service

In April 1941, West enlisted in the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and worked as a cipher officer, being eventually posted to Gladesville, New South Wales, in 1944. He was seconded from the RAAF to work for Billy Hughes, former Australian prime minister, for a time. His first published novel, '' Moon in My Pocket'', came out in 1945 using the pseudonym "Julian Morris". He wrote it while in the air force. It was published by the Australasian Publishing Company, a branch of Harrap's Publishing Company in London, and sold more than 10,000 copies.

Radio producer

West worked as publicity manager at Melbourne radio station 3DB. He moved into radio drama, setting up his own radio production company ARP, which operated from 1945 to 1954. For the next 10 years he focused on writing, directing and producing radio plays and serials. His radio plays included ''The Mask of Marius Melville'' (1945), ''The Curtain Rises'' (1946), ''The Affairs of Harlequin'' (1951), ''The Prince of Peace'' (c. 1951), ''When a Girl Marries'' (1952), ''The Enchanted Island'' (1952), ''Trumpets in the Dawn'' (c. 1953–54) and ''Genesis in Juddsville'' (c. 1955–56). The workload of his job and a crisis in his marital relations led to West having a nervous breakdown. He ultimately sold his company to focus on writing full-time.

Novelist

Early works

West's first novel published under his own name was ''Gallows on the Sand'' (1955), written in seven days. He followed it with ''Kundu'' (1956), a New Guinea adventure written in three weeks. He also wrote a play, ''The Illusionists'' (1955). West moved to Europe with his family. His third novel was ''The Big Story'' (1957), which was later filmed as '' The Crooked Road'' (1965). A trip to Naples led to meeting Father Borelli who worked with the street boys of Naples. This resulted in the non-fiction book '' Children of the Sun'' (1957) which was West's first international success. According to a later profile on the author:

With this work, West not only found his way as a writer but discovered the theme that would underpin almost all of his subsequent books — the nature and misuse of power. Of the 18 novels he was to write post-1957, 15 are on this subject. This discovery was particularly felicitous for West because, it suited his talents admirably. An interesting comparison may be made with
David Williamson David Keith Williamson AO (born 24 February 1942) is an Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays. Early life David Williamson was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 24 February 1942, and was brought ...
, another writer from whom profound thinking and significant insights are not to be expected. What they have in common is a keen eye for the real world around them. By fleshing out the partially familiar, they make perceptive sense of it, demonstrating in the process that the general uneasiness and suspicion ordinary people feel about many aspects of contemporary life are well-founded. West was to show that he could identify these concerns with considerable acuity.

He wrote '' The Second Victory'' (1958) (also known as ''Backlash'' and later filmed) and under the pseudonym "Michael East" wrote ''McCreary Moves In'' (1958) aka ''The Concubine''.

Best-selling novelist

West's first best-selling novel was '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959) which he spent two years writing. He sold the film rights for $250,000 and it was adapted into a play and later a film. West later said the novel earned him several million dollars. He wrote another "Michael East" novel, '' The Naked Country'' (1960), which was filmed in the 1980s. ''

Daughter of Silence ''Daughter of Silence'' (1961) is a crime novel by Australian author Morris West Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), '' The ...

'' (1961) was also adapted into a play. During this time he was the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

correspondent for the '' Daily Mail'' from 1956 to 1963.Janet Chimonyo, "Vatican tag", ''Weekend Australian'', 13–14 June 1998, His son, C. Chris O'Hanlon, said that he spent his first 12 birthdays in 12 different countries. '' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) was a huge success, selling over six million copies and made into a movie. He followed it with '' The Ambassador'' (1965), ''

The Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

'' (1968), ''Summer of the Red Wolf'' (1971) and ''The Salamander'' (1973). He wrote a non-fiction book, ''Scandal in the Assembly: A Bill of Complaints and a Proposal for Reform of the Matrimonial Laws and Tribunals of the Roman Catholic Church'' (1970, with Robert Francis). He wrote a play ''The Heretic'', based on Giordano Bruno, which was performed on the London stage in 1973. Further novels included ''Harlequin'' (1974), ''The Navigator'' (1976), ''Proteus'' (1979) and ''The Clowns of God'' (1981). In 1978 he was living in England, New York and Italy and said "I'm an Australian by origin, by identity, in manners. I have never felt any destruction or diminution of my identity by having a European education, or by acquiring a fluency in three languages and living abroad." His advance of ''Clowns of God'' was £100,000. By 1981 his books had sold over 25 million copies. West wrote the play ''The World is Made of Glass'' in 1982 for the Adelaide Festival. He turned this into a novel which was published the following year.

Return to Australia

In 1982 West returned home to Australia. His later novels include ''Cassidy'' (1986) (which became a mini series), ''Masterclass'' (1988), ''Lazarus'' (1990), ''The Ringmaster'' (1991), and ''The Lovers'' (1993). In 1993, West announced that he had written his last book and a formal valedictory dinner was held in his honour. However, he found he could not retire as he had planned and wrote a further three novels and two non-fiction books: ''Vanishing Point'' (1996) and ''Eminence'' (1998), plus an anthology entitled ''Images and Inscriptions'' (1997) and his memoir ''A View from the Ridge: The Testimony of a Twentieth-century Pilgrim'' (1996). He was working on the novel ''The Last Confession'' when he died; it was posthumously published in 2000.

Writing

A major theme of much of West's work was a question: when so many organisations use extreme violence towards evil ends, when and under what circumstances is it morally acceptable for their opponents to respond with violence? He stated on different occasions that his novels all deal with the same aspect of life, that is, the dilemma when sooner or later you have a situation such that nobody can tell you what to do.Maryanne Confoy, "Morris the maverick", ''Weekend Australian'', 5–6 March 2005 West wrote with little revision. His first longhand version was usually not very different from the final printed version. Despite winning many prizes and being awarded honorary doctorates,Ramona Koval, "Academics, we want to feel your passion!", ''Weekend Australian'', 16–17 October 1999 his commercial success and his skills as a story teller, he never won the acceptance of Australia's literary clique. In the 1998 ''Oxford Literary History of Australia'' it was stated that: "Despite his international popularity, West has been surprisingly neglected by Australian literary critics." The previous edition, edited by Dame

Leonie Kramer Dame Leonie Judith Kramer, (1 October 1924 – 20 April 2016) was an Australian academic, educator and professor. She is notable as the first female professor of English in Australia, first woman to chair the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ...

, did not mention him at all. West was awarded the 1959

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

for '' The Devil's Advocate''. In the early 1960s, he helped found the

Australian Society of Authors The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) was formed in 1963 as the organisation to promote and protect the rights of Australia's authors and illustrators. The Fellowship of Australian Writers played a key role it its establishment. The organisati ...

.Sally Blakeney, "The outsider: How the literati shunned a luminary", ''Weekend Australian'', 16–17 October 1999 He presented the 1986 Playford Lecture.

''The Last Confession''

West died while working at his desk on the final chapters of his novel ''The Last Confession'', about the trials and imprisonment of Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. Bruno was a person with whom West had long sympathised and even identified. In 1969 he had published a blank-verse play, ''The Heretic'', on the same subject. This was staged in London in 1970.Margaret Jones, "Vale a reluctant heretic", critique of ''The Last Confession'', ''Sydney Morning Herald'', Spectrum, 5 August 2000. Of all his writings, he said this play had "the most of me in it". In 1998 he converted it into a libretto for an opera, which was set to music by Colin Brumby but which has not been staged.Tony Stephens, "Last Writes'", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', Spectrum, 3 June 2000. In early 1999 he also contemplated a film script based on the play. He wrote ''The Last Confession'' in the form of the diary that Bruno might have written knowing that execution was approaching. The diary was intended to cover the period 21 December 1599 to 17 February 1600, however it covers just 14 days; the entry West was writing when he died was dated 4 January 1600 and he had written only about half as much as he had intended. Nevertheless, the last paragraph he ever wrote was poignant: ''I can write no more today … who knows to what nightmares I might wake''. West had had several severe heart attacks and undergone double-bypass surgery.Murray Waldren
"Last charge of an old warhorse"
''Weekend Australian'', 17–18 June 2000. Murray Waldren writes: "This is a book written by a man aware death is imminent about a man aware execution is near". West's family decided to publish it in 2000, in an incomplete form and without any editing, leaving readers free to imagine how the story might have ended. It has a foreword by

Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, wh ...

, an editor's note by his publisher Angelo Loukakis and an epilogue co-written by his assistant Beryl Barraclough and his widow Joy West.

Personal life

West was born on 26 April 1916, in St Kilda. He and his first wife, Elizabeth Harvey, had two children: Elizabeth, who became a nun, and Julian who was a wine-maker before his death in 2005. Julian and his wife Helen Grimaux, had a daughter named Juliana Harriett West. West and Elizabeth Harvey divorced, and West then married Joyce "Joy" Lawford. Since his first wife, Elizabeth, was still alive when he married Joy, he struggled for a church annulment of his first marriage. He was out of communion with the Roman Catholic Church for many years because of this marital situation, and he had significant issues with the church's teachings. However, he never considered himself as anything other than a committed Catholic. Joy West said that he was a believer who attended Mass every Sunday. West and Joy had four children together. One son, C. Chris O'Hanlon, born in 1954, changed his name at the age of 26 as a gesture of independence. After starting four books in an attempt to realise what he believed were his father's expectations, and having to give back the advances he received from publishers when he could not finish them, he realised that he was not destined to be a writer. O'Hanlon, who suffers from a severe

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

, founded Spike Wireless, an internet design house.Jane Wheatley, interviewer, "The two of us: Morris West and C. Chris O'Hanlon", ''Sydney Morning Herald'', Good Weekend, 14 February 1998 Another of West's sons, Mike, is a musician who fronted the UK independent popular music band Man from Delmonte during the late 1980s and early 1990s and has released several solo albums of New Orleans country music, especially being well known with the international touring act Truckstop Honeymoon. West's grandson Anthony (Ant) West is also a musician, who fronted the UK music band

Futures Futures may mean: Finance *Futures contract, a tradable financial derivatives contract *Futures exchange, a financial market where futures contracts are traded * ''Futures'' (magazine), an American finance magazine Music * ''Futures'' (album), a ...

and currently is in the UK group Oh Wonder. West died at the age of 83 on 9 October 1999 in Clareville, New South Wales.

Honours

West was appointed a Member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gov ...

in the

Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port ...

Honours of 1985. He was upgraded to Officer of the Order in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1997.

Bibliography

Fiction

*''Moon in My Pocket'' (1945, using the pseudonym "Julian Morris") *''Gallows on the Sand'' (1956) *''Kundu'' (1956) *''The Big Story'' (1957; aka ''The Crooked Road'') *''The Second Victory'' (1958; aka ''Backlash'') *''McCreary Moves In'' (1958, using the pseudonym "Michael East"; aka ''The Concubine'') *'' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959) *''The Naked Country'' (1960, using the pseudonym "Michael East") *''

'' (1961) *'' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) *'' The Ambassador'' (1965) *''

'' (1968) *''Summer of the Red Wolf'' (1971) *''The Salamander'' (1973) *''Harlequin'' (1974; aka The Duel of Death) *''The Navigator'' (1976) *''Proteus'' (1979) *''The Clowns of God'' (1981) *''The World Is Made of Glass'' (1983) *'' Cassidy'' (1986) *''Masterclass'' (1988) *''Lazarus'' (1990) *''The Ringmaster'' (1991) *''The Lovers'' (1993) *''Vanishing Point'' (1996) *''Eminence'' (1998), *''The Last Confession'' (2000, posthumously published),

Radio serials

*''The Mask of Marius Melville'' (1945) *''The Prince of Peace'' (c1951)Australian Radio Series 1930–1970
*''Trumpets in the Dawn'' (c1953–54) *''Genesis in Juddsville'' (c1955–56)Albert Moran and Chris Keating, ''The A to Z of Australian Radio and Television''. Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2007, p. 383

Plays

*''The Illusionists'' (1955) *''The Devil's Advocate'' (1961) *''Daughter of Silence'' (1962) *''The Heretic'' (1969) *''The World is Made of Glass'' (1982)

Non-fiction

*''Children of the Sun: The Slum Dwellers of Naples'' (1957) (US title: ''Children of the Shadows: The True Story of the Street Urchins of Naples'') *''Scandal in the Assembly: A Bill of Complaints and a Proposal for Reform of the Matrimonial Laws and Tribunals of the Roman Catholic Church'' (1970, with Robert Francis) * *

Film adaptations

*'' The Crooked Road'' (based on ''The Big Story'') (1965) starring

Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor and activist. Known for his portrayals of hardened cops and ruthless villains, Ryan performed for over three decades. He was nominated for the Academy Award for B ...

*'' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1968) starring

Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...

*'' The Devil's Advocate'' (1977) starring

John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portra ...

, Daniel Massey,

Paola Pitagora Paola Pitagora (born 24 August 1941) is an Italian film actress. She has appeared in 50 films since 1959. Biography Born in Parma, Pitagora attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and the acting school by Alessandro Fersen. In 1960 s ...

and

Stéphane Audran Stéphane Audran (born Colette Suzanne Dacheville; 8 November 1932 – 27 March 2018) was a French actress. She was known for her performances in award-winning films such as ''The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'' (1972) and ''Babette's Feast'' ...

*'' The Salamander'' (1981) *'' The Naked Country'' (1984) *'' The Second Victory'' (1986) *'' Cassidy'' (1989)

References

External links

Fiction set in ItalyMorris West Australian theatre credits
at

AusStage AusStage: The Australian Live Performance Database is an online database which records information about live performances in Australia, providing records of productions from the first recorded performance in Australia (1789, by convicts) up unt ...