Byline: Andrew Rutherford

`The Demidenko File' edited by John Jost, Gianna Totaro and Christine Tyshing, Penguin, $14.95. `The Demidenko Diary' by Natalie Jane Prior, Reed, $14.95. `The Demidenko Debate' by Andrew Riemer, Allen & Unwin, $14. 95. IT'S less than six months since the Demidenko controversy was at its peak and the Australian publishing industry can be ambiguously proud of the alacrity of its response. The first salvos, three books disparate in genre but depressingly similar in title, often bear signs of the speed of composition - but hey, who could wait? Or rather, the likely fruits of a delay - greater circumspection in Natalie Jane Prior, litheness in Andrew Riemer and comprehensiveness in the Penguin collection - are of uncertain value. Prior's diary of her experience of Helen Darville at the crucial period has the sensational angle you would expect to have turned up at same stage, and we had been warned for some time about Riemer's nervous apologia. The surprise is that Penguin should have brought out a selection of documents so early. After all, the story is far from over. These 300-odd pages, however, if far from complete, are probably more sizeable than the average HD scrapbook. Useful for most Melbourne readers will be the inclusion of material that appeared only in `The Sydney Morning Herald', including a longer version of Darville/Demidenko's response to Gerard Henderson's allegations of anti-semitism in `The Hand That Signed the Paper' of 27 June. A fuller sense of the Brisbane perspective on things is provided by pieces from the `Courier-Mail', usually summarised here and only when of news value. It's also handy to have gathered together articles and letters from the Jewish press, notably an early and polite interview with the then Demidenko in `Australian Jewish News'. The book's greatest value is in its transcripts of television and...