"I have suspected Mum and Lyle are drug dealers since I found a five-hundred-gram brick of Golden Triangle heroin stowed in the mower catcher in our backyard shed five days ago."
Perhaps if you'd just crawled out from under a rock after having been stuck there for many years you would have not heard the intense praise for Trent Dalton's book. Otherwise, like me, you might have experienced that sense of missing out on something that is so beloved by so many readers, if you hadn't scored yourself a copy.
The other day I was reading my copy as I waited for the skin doctor to come in and do a skin cancer check (all good). The dermatologist was an absolute star and on seeing the cover he yelled ' I know what you're reading!" and went on to ask me if I was enjoying it. He hadn't been able to finish it and was surprised by all the acclaim. I was midway through and totally understood his reaction, I was struggling with the grim, gritty, content.
Something shifted in my appreciation of the novel as I neared the end. The never-ending hopelessness gave way a little at a time, altering my previously negative responses. While the writing is more of the style that would appeal to my mother, much as the Editor that Eli approaches describes his writing as a 'colour writer', and 'You paint pretty pictures', Dalton shares a particularly detailed style which slowed my reading and was at times just a little too much for my taste.
All in all, an impressive debut and it is fantastic to see an Australian author kicking goals.
4 out of 5 - dark places with a hint of light.
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