Making the Shrine: stories from Victoria’s war memorial

“Melbourne’s Shrine is a storied place and those stories have greater diversity and reach than you can imagine. Which is why we need an artist as gifted as Laura J Carroll to have used her talent, research-skills and imagination to produce such an unexpected and remarkable history. Making the Shrine is a unique and extraordinary book.”
— SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM, author of Melbourne and This Devastating Fever
A book cover. The name of the book and the author are written over a coloured pencil drawing of the Shrine of Remembrance seen in a gap tall trees

Paperback, 176pp

ISBN 9781763515604

A tender and funny graphic novel exploring the soul of a city’s most treasured monument.

The Shrine of Remembrance has been an everyday sight in the living memory of all Melbournians. But while everyone knows its purpose, not everyone knows the many stories that have surrounded it for a century. The competition for its design, and the eleventh-hour campaign that forced it into existence. The community enterprise that helped to fund it. The hardship and struggle that came with its creation. Throughout it all, the constant battle to define what it represents to the people of Victoria. 

This graphic novel is a sequence of stories seeking to explain the meaning of the Shrine across time, both to its architects and supporters, and to the many Victorians who contributed to its creation, and to those who have visited, violated and venerated it since. Some of the stories are individual and intimate; others are public history from the archives. In Laura J. Carroll’s words and pictures, the building’s many lives are brought into focus in new and exciting ways. 

For readers 10-100.

  • This is the tale of a revered city monument, of the world history that it reflects and the many individual lives that it has touched, told through stories and drawings full of gentleness and empathy.

    Kerryn Goldsworthy, award-winning critic and writer

  • Making the Shrine, a biography of Victoria’s Shrine of Remembrance, melds the historical and the imaginative in splendid style. Its character as a graphic novel sits alongside its essential nature as a serious piece of historical interpretation. It is profound, funny, respectful and informative, but above all human.

    Peter Stanley, former Principal Historian of the Australian War Memorial and author of Lost Boys of Anzac

  • Laura J Carroll’s deeply affecting graphic novel offers an intimate portrait of the Shrine of Remembrance and a nuanced understanding of war’s impact on the Australian national psyche. Exquisitely rendered, with touches of whimsical humour that recall the comic artistry of Glen Baxter and Alison Bechdel, this is a book that will appeal across generations.

    Eleanor Hogan, author of Into the Loneliness

  • Born from a deep love of the Shrine of Remembrance and knowledge of the building’s most hidden spaces, this beautifully illustrated book tells the stories of the place and people that have made the Shrine one of the most solemn and moving memorials to the sacrifice of war in Australia.

    Naomi Parry Duncan, President of the Professional Historians’ Association of NSW and co-author of New South Wales and the Great War

  • Carroll's work evokes the humility, simplicity and gentle subversion of Raymond Briggs as she restores the Shrine to its rightful place at the heart of Victoria's social fabric. A testament to Carroll's passion for material culture, Making the Shrine is a treasure to pore over, to cherish, and to ponder the surprising ways we're all connected.

    Mel Campbell, cultural critic and author of Out of Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit

  • This is a profound work, grounded in compassion, delivered with Laura J Carroll’s unique blend of intellect and artistry. An opportunity to reflect on the paradoxes and complexities of war through the history of this important cultural institution.

    Tracy Crisp, author of Black Dust Dancing and Surrogate

Supported by a City of Melbourne Arts Grant.