What I got when I finished this book was not what I was expecting when I started. What I was expecting would not have been nearly as good. Sex, drugs, art, suicide, love, death and, possibly, murder are the themes of this exceptional debut novel, which deals with theme baldly and with unflinching honesty. The story opens in Cronulla in the early 90s. Neil, his girlfriend Courtney and their friends Gordon and Stuart are on the cusp of adulthood as they prepare to leave high school. Plans have been laid for their futures, but all that is changed when Neil decides to abandon his friends and head off on his own to study theatre in Bathurst. The impact of this decision is played out over the following decade as Neil’s pursuit of art takes him further away, physically and emotionally, and relationships are at times distant and searingly intimate. The characters are well defined and the connections between them true, difficult and sometimes inexplicable—so like life itself. Given that Brendan Cowell is a well-known actor (who also grew up in Cronulla and studied theatre in Bathurst), it would be natural to look for the autobiography in this story, but the characters are strong enough to tell their own stories. This is a bitter brew with a strong and complex palette and will not be to everyone’s taste—but it is definitely a title you will want to have on your shelves.
Paul Landymore is a bookseller at Brisbane’s Avid Reader. This review first appeared in the November 2010 issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.
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Tags: Australian book review, Avid Reader, book review, Brendan Cowell, fiction, How It Feels, Pan Macmillan, Paul Landymore, Picador
