For the past two weeks, a large proportion of Australia's Op-Ed pages have been filled with comment on Jonestown, Chris Masters' controversial biography of Alan Jones (for examples, see here and here). As I finally finished reading it over the weekend, I now feel as though I am able to fairly comment on the book. However, it is not a particularly easy book to comment. I find myself deeply conflicted over the journalistic merit of this book and able empathise with both Masters' detractors and supporters.
There is no doubt that the book is a fascinating and compelling read. Jones has had an extraordinary and varied life and the book does an effective job of tracing the many incarnations of Jones - loving son, precocious schoolboy, teacher and rugby coach, failed politician, broadcaster, and Australia's most prolific correspondent. In many ways the book is at its best (and worst) when charting Jones' life before radio. At its best because this is a part of his life that is not as well known as his radio career and Masters' takes us into what drives and motivates him. And at its worst because this is where Masters' labours Jones' sexuality.
Any discussion of Jonestown is doomed to focus on the appropriateness of outing Jones (and despite claims that his sexuality was already known in certain circles, I think it is clear that most Australians were previously unaware of his homosexuality). I say doomed because in many ways focusing on the sexuality issue overshadows what should have been the dominant point of discussion arising out of the book - a debate over the considerable influence the media and Jones in particular exerts over Australian politics. That said, Masters' does a good job of justifying his extensive reference to Jones' sexuality:
My investigation will go too far for some, particularly Alan Jones, but I could not avoid the elephant in the room. I am not alone in observing that Alan Jones appears to be homosexual. I can't see why homosexuality should be shameful, and I don't see why it is easier to smirk about it than to speak about it. The masking of his apparent sexuality is a defining feature of the Jones persona.
Jones' apparent self-belief that, on the one hand, he is damaged and, on the other, special goes a long way to explaining an unusual personality. It informs consistently curious behaviour, his private self frequently intruding on the public self. Alan Jones' impassioned attacks on some and defence of others often appear to have some grounding in perceived or real emotional connections to some of the parties. There are plenty of examples of Ala using his power to get closer to the young heterosexual males he appears to favour. There are also examples in his teaching, coaching and broadcasting of personal attitudes influencing public behaviour - for example, his lifelong habit of playing favourites. While I accept Alan Jones has a similar right to privacy as the rest of us, I came to the view that there is nothing honourable about his concealment of his sexuality. The lie that Alan Jones maintains is, I am sure, more for the sake of preserving a dishonest power base than it is about protecting personal privacy. (at xii)
Assuming that you accept Masters' justification for raising Jones' sexuality, the way Masters' ends up addressing Jones' sexuality feels prurient, voyeuristic and dishonest. Again and again Masters infuses the book with sexual innuendo (it doesn't surprise me that one critic noted that references to Jones' sexuality appear on 104 of the 445 pages of text). Moreover, Masters repeatedly hints at an inappropriate interest in young men (for example, "More than one wife of ex-boarding school boys has been known to wonder about the origin on her husband's habit of sleeping with his hands crossed over his genitals" (at 83)), while admitting that "there was no evidence of sexual impropriety" (at 84). Ultimately I find it hard to ascertain whether Masters' was entitled to raise Jones' sexuality, but it is not hard to come to the conclusion that Masters was wrong to relay so many unsubstantiated and suggestive rumours about Jones and young men.
As I read Jonestown, I couldn't help but feel that Masters included such innuendo because his journalistic judgment was clouded by his overwhelming dislike of and contempt for Jones (a cynic might even think Masters' is deeply jealous of Jones' influence and power). It is clear throughout Jonestown that Masters thinks very little of his subject. And the more Masters includes himself and his own perspectives in Jonestown, the more he obscures what one can only assume is his central theme - fundamental disquiet over the power Jones wields over governments and how that power can be so easily manipulated.
Accordingly, Jonestown is an absorbing read but a flawed biography.
