The Last Days of Zane Grey

Vicki Hastrich

$34.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen & Unwin
29 July 2025

Biography; Biography: literary; Literary studies: from c 1900 -

Zane Grey was the world's first millionaire author, inventor of the western in both literature and Hollywood films, globally feted as a celebrity adventurer. But until now his adventures in Australia have been little known.

Grey first sailed to Australia in the mid-1930s to pursue the new sport of game fishing and a secret Australian lover, but behind the scenes he was in trouble. While chasing world records in game fishing at Bermagui and showing Australians how to create new industries from their marine resources, Grey was also scrambling to protect his precarious finances by making the first ever 'Jaws' movie at Queensland's Hayman Island.

Amid all the drama that followed him, Grey was on a singular quest to test himself against an epic-sized great white shark - leading to the fight of his life in the wild seas off Port Lincoln.

In the tradition of Grey's own action-packed westerns, Vicki Hastrich's biography is a tale of a new frontier and a grand portrayal of Australian and American dreams, showcasing wilderness while bringing a missing part of Australia's history into dazzling light.

'Utterly absorbing! Vicki Hastrich's deeply perceptive portrait of writer Zane Grey recovers a kind of twentieth-century Captain Ahab in a rip-roaring tale of obsession, money and high adventure.'

Grace Karskens, Emeritus Professor of History, author of People of the River

'Zane Grey's writing set the stage for the western movie genre, however the characters he created to populate that world did not compare to those he met in Australia whilst chasing the giants of the sea. Vicki Hastrich has uncovered a story as big as the Great White Shark that haunted the famous fisherman's dreams.' Scott Levi, ABC broadcaster and host of the Big Fish podcast

'Zane Grey's fishing exploits in Australia in the 1930s are the stuff of legend. Here we finally meet the man himself, warts and all, vividly brought to life by Vicki Hastrich in this gritty, honest, always fascinating biography.' Dr Julian Pepperell, marine biologist and author of Fishes of the Open Ocean

By: Vicki Hastrich
Imprint: Allen & Unwin
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
Weight: 360g
ISBN: 9781761471452
ISBN 10: 1761471457
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 29 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Vicki Hastrich is a Sydney writer. Her two novels, Swimming with the Jellyfish (2001) and The Great Arch (2008) were followed by the memoir Night Fishing: Stingrays, Goya and the singular life (2019). Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, critic Beejay Silcox has called Night Fishing 'the literary equivalent of a glass-bottomed boat, a frame for wonderment'. Her 2025 biography The Last Days of Zane Grey examines the life of the American western writer, celebrity and big game-fisherman via the untold story of Zane Grey's two trips to Australia in the 1930s.