Description of book
Since its publication in March 2002, RECOLLECTIONS OF A BLEEDING HEART has sold over 50,000 copies and won a string of prestigious awards including The Age Book of the Year and Best Non-fiction book, The Courier-Mail Book of the Year and the National Biography Award.
Political commentator – and himself a Keating biographer – Michael Gordon calls the book 'a masterpiece...simply the best inside account of life, politics and combat inside the highest office of the land ever written.'
Don Watson was employed as Keating's speechwriter in 1992, less than a month after Keating took the country's top job. Though trained in history rather than economics and generally regarded as a 'bleeding heart liberal', Watson became a close advisor and friend to the Prime Minister.
Based on notes Watson kept during the four turbulent and exhausting years he spent working in the Prime Minister's Office, RECOLLECTIONS OF A BLEEDING HEART is a political memoir told from the inside; Keating himself says it is 'like the black box recorder in a plane'.
The book is a unique reflection on modern Australian politics, but Watson offers much more than political analysis. With empathy and insight, he provides a startlingly frank and revealing portrait of the former prime minister, portraying him as a brilliant, contradictory and complex man.
Reviews
'...a masterpiece...simply the best inside account of life, politics and combat inside the highest office of the land ever written.' Michael Gordon, The Age
* 'one of the most intelligent and seductive books about Australian politics which has ever come my way.' Robert Manne, The Sydney Morning Herald
'...the story of four tumultuous years told by an intelligent and curious insider, and no insider has ever done it better.'Les Carlyon, The Bulletin
'...the finest insider's account yet published of Australian politics in action at the highest level.' Tony Baker, The Adelaide Advertiser
'...a classic: an insider's account of the working of the political process, with its paranoia, its envies, its fevered inconsequentiality, its joys, crammed with wisdom and a lovely detachment.' Evan Williams, Spectrum, The Sydney Morning Herald
'....a sheer delight to read...written by a man who would have difficulty putting together a dull sentence...Watson stitches a rich tapestry of national, international and personal context.' Diana Simmonds, The Sun-Herald
'This book is like the black box recorder in a plane.' former PM Paul Keating