The Writings and Manner of Keith Garvey, Eccentric, Follower of Henry Lawson and Interpreter of the Closing of the (NSW) North West Frontier: A Critical Approach

In approaching my researches into the work of Keith Garvey I have developed for myself a problem of epistemology. Which came first the writer, or his topic? Is the writer the product of his topic, or is the topic a product of the writer who shaped and so created it to tease me. The social and work ethic of effort, as produced by our settler forebears-at least for us who are descended from the motley Celts and/or Saxons who arrived in this country in the century from 1788-is one still very much intrinsic to our national and (idealised) personal ethos. We all identify with a past often embellished with a certain amount of 'the heroic' or 'the legendary'. This manifests itself in our fiction, stories and history, both at the personal and communal levels.