In 1970, Frank Moorhouse, celebrated young champion of the counter-culture, published his short story, ‘The Girl from The Family of Man’. It is a fascinating and revealing composition, and a literary window on a now hidden history. Angela is the eponymous object of desire: an American, a veteran of the civil rights struggle, and a devotee of non-violence. Kyle is her somewhat gormless Australian suitor: politically innocent, priapic, fond of the bottle, ‘angry’ and ‘shat off’ with war, but by no means committed to peace. Their story, set in Sydney, is a comedy of pursuit. And Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is everywhere.

A photograph of Gandhi looms down from Angela's wall. She introduces her would-be seducer to ‘satyagraha’ – a Gandhian term she translates simply as ‘non-violence’ – and lends Kyle some of the Mahatma's writings, too. This education in Gandhiana is perplexing: while the emphasis on non-violence is acceptable, ‘all that crap’ about ‘chastity and discipline’ clashes with the Australian's fantasies of free love with a liberated Yank. ‘To hell with Gandhi and the chastity bit’, he implores, moving in for a kiss. ‘He's a little crazy there’, is her encouraging response, ‘but that's his way, I guess’.