The title of Robert Gray's autobiography is drawn from a poem by the famous Australian poet Christopher Brennan, 'The land I came thro' last was dumb with night / a limbo of defeated glory, a ghost'. There is more glory than defeat in this work, though, the memoir of a writer who is, in turn, one of Australia's best-known living poets. Although Gray is necessarily present throughout, the personal element is subdued it is on others that the focus always falls, and on his parents most of all. Their struggle with defeatedexpectation and finally with old age closes the book. The Land I Came Through Last is ultimately a tribute to their strengths and weaknesses, and their very different personalities.