Karen Middleton 
Albanese 
Telling It Straight

The moving personal story behind the very public political face of Labor’s Anthony Albanese.A window on the recent turbulent years of federal politics with a deeply personal dimension, this is the whole story of Anthony Albanese and the remarkable mother, Maryanne, who raised him.Anthony learned his political craft among the tough men and women of NSW Labor, inheriting his mother’s devotion to social justice, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the party his family had served for three generations.Maryanne adored her only child and Anthony his only parent. Until his teens, he believed she had been widowed before his birth. Then one evening, she sat him down and told him the truth.This story reveals what shaped the bloke they call ‘Albo’, his climb through politics by playing hard, fast and sometimes loose and how as he and his colleagues wrestled with Labor’s future, he discovered his own past.