[5] This semi-autobiographical novel, definable as a roman à clef, follows the narrator, David Meredith, through his childhood and adolescence in interwar Melbourne through to adulthood and his prominent career as a journalist during World War II, to his life on a Greek island in the 1950s and 60s.

In reviewing the novel in 2014, fifty years after its original publication, Paul Daley in The Guardian asks the reader to "look beyond the obvious autobiography and the family roman à clef, and discover the novel’s real strength – a daring iconoclasticism that challenges pervasive assumptions about Australian character, values and suburban complacency.

It challenges the “suburban dream”, another of the great cultural pillars – the primary one being the Anzac legend – upon which Australian character supposedly stands.My Brother Jack won the Miles Franklin Award in 1964.

Ken Cameron directed, and the cast included William McInnes, Angie Milliken, Claudia Karvan, Jack Thompson and Felix Williamson with Simon Lyndon and Matt Day as the brothers.

[12] The series was released on DVD, as a two-part film, by Umbrella Entertainment (DAVID0351), also in a two-disc package with Bad Blood as "Great Aussie Icons: Jack Thompson" (DAVID1019).