Review: Paul Anderson (Apollo’s Eldest Son)-Behalf Of Family

Sadness, deep disappointment, anger & a sickening sense of betrayal characterise the distressful way I feel towards this book & my involvement with Jon Faine.

Regrettably this book from Apollo’s & our perspective, is largely out right fictional story creation. It is full of time line errors, misquotes, incorrect claims, key figure omissions & description faults. The author vastly over exaggerates his involvement in our history & uses biased, ill informed & in several cases disrespectful opinions!

Faine despite his claims, met my father a handful of times in the early to mid 1980s. I barely remember him from this period & met him only recently before the book project, due to a radio interview. I wish to make it clear Faine is no family friend & this is evident in the handling of this book project!

The author’s very limited personal knowledge of my father is reflected in his unfounded, assessment of his personality. It is despicable to encourage a performer, pioneering innovator & proud man to share his life story’s & inner workings, then weaponise this against him in what I view as a character asasination.

Faine’s total misunderstanding of my father’s writings, concerning his positive mind body channeling, does not surprise me. It soon became apparent on discussing the subject with him, that he possessed a cynical, arrogant, close minded attitude, clearly, from a non physical man.

Thelma’s portrayal in the book is completely one sided, viewed almost wholly from a business perspective (in a man driven harsh environment) & from jealous Territorians. The family’s view & stories of a caring, loving sister, god mother & aunty were ignored, as it obviously didn’t suit Faine’s narrative.


How did this book get to this? Faine was clearly overwhelmed by material, interview information, time constraints & pressure from publishers. After 3 drafts, as promised all along, we were due to see the final draft, in his words “to tell me where I f**ked up & if there are any serious issues you wont dealt with”. Unfortunately, this did not occur & there lies the problem!

According to Faine, the publishers would only allow us to view the final draft of one chapter, due to their protective nature of the book! This was the chapter of the family as children & it was full of factual errors on first inspection. Faine, under pressure, allowed me to verbally edit another chapter. The end draft of that chapter was never viewed by the family & hardly altered upon inspection of the published book.

Multiple chapters relating to the family were blocked from viewing. It is obvious “That was a take”, in their eyes. Faine & the publishers constructed the Tall Tale they wanted, at the expense of portraying a true account as we were promised. There was no consideration of the feelings or impact to us as a family! Seems assurements & pledges went out the window in the final creation of this book.

As a result, in the end, this is NOT a story our family is proud to be associated with, as Faine claimed we would be. Arrogance, creating a fictional story to prop up the author’s ego, has destroyed what could have been a great book, if the true story was at least told.

This book reads as a mishmash of chapters, even the black & white photos protest their existence in the book, attempting to absorb into the pages & hide in darkness. Such a shame & a huge violation of a family’s legacy, trust, faith & energy!




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