Many memoirs are written only for family and friends to read. This one might have been better kept for that small group. It details the memories of a man who worked for Melbourne newspapers until he accepted a redundancy in 2012 at the age of 55.

Details of his early life in the newish outer suburb of Frankston during the 1960s make for dull reading. He and his parents lived in a house built by his father (where the front door was nailed shut for the first 13 years), with an outdoor toilet and only scrub on most of the surrounding blocks.

Shaun Carney writes well, and so he should, having worked as a journalist on the Herald and The Age, retiring as a political columnist and with the title of associate editor. He is probably aware that all the detail he recalls of his parents’ difficult marriage, his schooldays and his entry into journalism after university are part memoir and part social history, and that could be the main value of this book. When his career becomes really interesting, so does his book. He refers to his position at The Age as his dream job, allowing him to travel the world. He stayed there for 26 years.

He wrote two books while at The Age: one on industrial changes brought about by the Hawke government, and a biography of Peter Costello. His take on the computerisation and digitisation of journalism will be illuminating for younger people, and chapters on a daughter’s life-threatening disease and the deaths of his parents are masterful.

It’s just a shame that the early chapters were not edited more ruthlessly.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville