Lunch of Blood - Critical Response

Critical Response

The Canberra Times critic explained, "Geoffrey Wheatcroft called their tool of trade ‘the killer interview’. Mark Lawson christened the movement ‘jugular journalism’. It was like a bullfight, he said. ‘Fifteen hundred words flash by, a succession of passes with the muleta, and then comes estocada, and another carcass is dragged away by the mule-team’ … one of our matador-interviewers." Australian Bookseller & Publisher concurred: "The interviews hang together superbly as a collection, largely because Gambotto has … the astonishing ability to reveal the absolute essence of a person." And in The Sydney Morning Herald, Don Anderson described Gambotto-Burke in interviewer mode as "a Tinker Bell among the pirates, sprinkling fairy dust in the eyes of celebrity crocodiles ...," and concluded: "Never let it be said that Michael Douglas's line in Wall Street, 'Lunch is for wimps', could apply to her."