"You're growing up to be a real bloody little wowser," he would say with an angry contempt, and I would blush to the roots of my hair, for in Jack's bawdy and colourful lexicon "wowser" was the most despicable form of human or animal life. He deplored the puritanical views I held about smoking and drinking, but it was on the question of girls that he most resented me That must have been the only time in my life I ever came to hate my brother Jack.

David and Jack Meredith grew up in a patriotic suburban Melbourne household during the First World War, and go on to lead lives that could not be more different. Through the story of the two brothers George Johnston created an enduring exploration of two Australian myths: that of the man who loses his soul as he gains worldly success, and that off the tough, honest, Aussie battler, whose greatest ambition is to serve his country during the war.

Acknowledged as one of the true Australian classics, My Brother Jack is a deeply satisfying, complex and moving literary masterpiece.