Photographs by Christina
He was brilliant, a musician and talented artist; a loved friend, brother, uncle and son. He studied visual art with my twin and we would go and drink coffee at his house that backed onto the university and he would be using the last clean coffee cup as an ashtray, so he would make you a coffee in a bowl or a jar, whatever could be found. Later he moved in with my sister in a little old Queenslander in Camp Hill, they lived in student poverty together, taught each other, shared, learnt together, loved each other. In all the years since, they always remained strong friends.
Not so long ago we all met for coffee together, he was my friend through her. We were in West End and sharing recent stories and adventures. J.N now missing a tooth but smiling broadly. He was at times erratic and frenetic, unpredictable, unfathomable, but always charismatic and engaging. He could draw elegantly and evocatively and also with the grit and sensuous line of Egon Schiele. He was the genius that we all thought would "make it", seriously, no one I know has ever come near the talent he had. He was the one that you thought people would be writing biographies on one day, and you'd be answering interviewers saying "Yes, I knew him through my sister" and "I thought he was brilliant". I remember the view from his rental in West End... all these memories keep coming back.
This is the email he sent me a few months ago:
Czech out Lydia Davis- good short stories. Nice translator. All round good read.
P.S- If you are still researching early bohemian Australian writers, I was befriended by Shelton Lea, who I never realised was a thing until the ABC interviewed him and the gaff-boys hung out and bought illicits off him during one of my archive sessions at his bookstore.
Shortly after, he died. I got sad, but anyway.
Congrats on the academic success- use it well. Be good
J.N
Well I bought and read a book of Lydia Davis' short stories and never had a chance to discuss them with him. And I knew that J.N had a history of mental illness and I would never have pegged him as a living to 89 in a nursing home kind of guy, but I never thought, and still can't believe, that this wonderful, talented, twenty-eight year old took his own life.
There was a 4ZZZ (radio station) tribute to J.N, start at 4mins 44secs - they played some of his songs.
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