PETER KENNA (1930–1987) was one of thirteen children brought up in an Irish Catholic family in the working class Sydney suburb of Balmain. A radio and stage actor, he first attracted national attention as a writer in 1959 when The Slaughter of St Teresa's Day won a General Motors-Holden National Playwriting Competition. He moved to London in 1959 where he wrote Talk to the Moon and Muriel's Virtues. He returned to live in Sydney in 1971, debilitated by a chronic illness. Nevertheless, the 1970s proved to be his most fruitful decade with Listen Closely, Mates, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted, and The Cassidy Album Trilogy—A Hard God, Furtive Love and An Eager Hope, which was written between 1973 and 1982.