Into the Rip

Damien Cave’s Into the Rip considers how we calculate and cope with risk in Australia. As the first bureau chief of the New York Times Australian outpost, Cave leverages his journalistic point of view and Americanness to explore real and imagined dangers to our society, with examples ranging from the mundane (why we sit in the front seat of taxis) to the extreme (chancing life and livelihood under devastating bushfire conditions). In a frank, often pensive way, Cave shows how natural disasters, collective traumas and Covid-19-which Cave considers as ‘blind spots in societal risk calculation’-are forcing a kind of reckoning with risk and uncertainty in Australian society. Into the Rip is anchored by the metaphor of surfing against rips, where one has to find, resist and persevere against pressure in exchange for possible payoff. Cave’s writing is crisp and sharp, with an anecdotal approach that helps anchor and expose the very human toll of traumas such as the Christchurch massacre. What will resonate with readers is Cave’s thorough examination of the social values that set us apart from countries such as the US. This resonates now more than ever given the Covid-19 pandemic, at the peak of which American individual liberty seemingly trumped any kind of shared social commitment to certainty, safety and self-preservation. Centred around a thoughtful, provocative premise that offers a fresh perspective on the Australian experience, Into the Rip feels incredibly timely, as crises of government, society and environment give us pause to reflect on risk and chance today. Nathan Smith is a freelance arts writer.

Damien Cave has worked for the NYT since 2004. He and his wife Diana were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2008 with a team in Baghdad, for coverage of the Iraq war. Australian Bureau Chief since 2017, he’s travelled the country and interviewed many well-known people; he also covered the Christchurch shootings in New Zealand. He lives in Sydney with his wife and two children.

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