Artful Histories is an account of modern Australian autobiography that
radically revises theories of autobiography and discusses a remarkably
broad range of popular and literary texts written over a period of three
decades. In his challenge to post-structuralist theories of
autobiography, particularly in terms of autobiography's relationship
with fiction and history, David McCooey analyses the nature of the self,
the question of intent and the role of narrative. He discusses the ways
in which the autobiographer makes sense of his or her life through a
developing but continuous awareness of the narrative quality of
experience. The book explores themes around the mythology of childhood,
education, sexuality, the discovery of hidden histories, the trauma of
displacement and death and, finally, the importance of place in the
Australian imagination.