Kim Williams and the memoir that missed out the main course

Memoir
Rules of Engagement
KIM WILLIAMS
Melbourne University Press, $44.99

It was a delicious prospect for Murdoch watchers. Kim Williams, the former head of News Corp Australia who lasted only 18 months in the job, was set to bring out a book with MUP. News Corp's mastheads had their cannons at the ready, Williams was booked to appear on every ABC program bar Giggle and Hoot and everyone was expecting a tantalising look into those troubled times in the Murdoch Empire: the feuds, the controversies and the eventual sacking of the Australian CEO by Rupert Murdoch.

What a shame we didn't get that book.

Instead he's given us Rules of Engagement – a mix of personal memoir and cultural jottings. You come away from this book just feeling you had been promised so much more.

Williams declares – exasperatingly – that he has "no intention of telling any major aspect" of his News Corp trials and tribulations. There are hints, of course. The fight with Murdoch over Williams agreeing to launch then Treasurer Chris Bowen's book on ALP reform is given in some detail, and it provides a small glimpse of this softly spoken culture buff adrift in Murdoch's world – with its fair share of old hacks and bovver-boys.

And the veil is ripped. Williams says: "I have seen much mischief elsewhere, which has misrepresented my period at News, distorted what I did." But it's a rare moment of anger. Williams is no enemy of News, he praises Murdoch and the company, and says "I won't jump into the gutters with others".

But oh, how you wish he would. The small, sparkling glimpse into the News saga is the one thing to savour in this empty book.

Rules of Engagement provides remarkably little to engage with. Williams' conception of the book is less a memoir than "a collection of essays of the things I'm passionate about". Well, it's nice that Williams has such a broad range of interests but these "essays" are at their best uninspiring and insipid. At their worst, it consists of fan lists more worthy of Buzzfeed than a major MUP title.

The book intertwines Williams' career with his passions – in particular music, film and television. You really think the former head of the Sydney Opera House Trust and the Australian Film Commission would have a bit more of substance to say about the arts industry in this country.

We get the odd flourishing statement about "the importance of film" or the "magic of music" but it's mostly catalogues of Williams' favourite things. Each chapter ends with a top 10 of his favourite shows or books or journalists, while cinema buffs are lucky enough to get an entire chapter made up to lists of Williams' favourite movies. He's no critic and it's hard not to see what a book full of "top 10s" really adds to national culture.

As for his writing on politics, it's reminiscent of the worst kind of Canberra bureaucrat. No big ideas, just discussions about "ensuring provisions of quality of outcomes in legislation". It's not only unoriginal but virtually unintelligible to anyone outside the bureaucratic bubble – Rudd-speak and CEO-speak run together.

It's true that some of his personal recollections are very touching. We get a beautiful insight into his relationship with his mother, Joan: full of a zest for life and power that her highflyer son inherited. Sadly, this is dovetailed with details of her final days where Williams is deeply self-critical: a brutal, staggering honesty that seems to come out in the deepest mourning.

Rules of Engagement doesn't fulfil its promise. Our glimpses into News Corp are fleeting and our glimpses into anything else are blocked out by those interminable lists, that distinct sense of ego taking over. But relish these human moments because they make this book more bearable.

Williams says in his opening that he has written a full account of the News Corp sacking and will release it in "a few years, when the dust has settled". Let's all hold out for that one.