PAUL'S PICKS [Book Reviews of Publications by Local Authors]: "Mordialloc" by James Maclean
PAUL'S PICKS [Book Reviews of Publications by Local Authors]: "Mordialloc" by James Maclean
PAUL'S PICKS
Book Reviews of Publications Penned by
Our Community's Local Authors
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Visit Paul Karp's Poetry Website at:
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Mentone Public Library is committed towards promoting local history and the local literary talent of the City of Kingston and surrounding municipalities of Bayside, Glen Eira and Port Phillip in the Bayside region of Melbourne Australia.
Mentone Public Library is pleased to have recruited
Paul "Percussion & Poet" Karp
to source and review the local literary pearls of publications you might be yet to discover.
Paul "Percussion & Poet" Karp
to source and review the local literary pearls of publications you might be yet to discover.
This month Paul's book review pick is by
local-but-currently-based-abroad author:
And the book:
I was chuffed to read that not only is this novel set in the suburb where I lived for 18 years (7 years after the novel's setting in 1988-9), but the McGuinness family featured of this novel lived in my street - Gipps Avenue!
But nearby Albert Street seems a more likely location. Gipps Avenue has no 'bend into' it (p.41) and no 'empty alley just within earshot' (p.42). Park Street bends nicely into Albert Street and while there is no alley in Albert Street, there is a long high-fenced rear driveway that could be mistaken for one.
I'm still scratching my head about the main character, 18 year-old Floyd McGuinness. Already a freeloading binge drinker in Chapter 1, he drinks instead of studying for his VCE exam to just
'scrape into some bulls**t university course' (p.416).
I can't fathom why he had any friends at all. He just whines and whinges.
The novel's plot contains no tests of character to establish his friendships. The only reason they stay in touch seems to be their implication in the same crime.
Maybe that's the point James Maclean is making. Floyd lacks character. No thought of getting a vacation job after finishing school ever entered anywhere near the universe of his consciousness. He comes across as a spoilt brat who always has beer money to spend at some Mordialloc pub. Early in the novel we learn that Floyd's father abandoned the family, so you can see Floyd as an example of the wreckage left from a broken family.
Old-school, mysterious, behind-the-scenes mover and shaker, Frank Cook, (my favourite character) took on a mentor-like role for Floyd, but even he seemed to cut his losses in the end.
I couldn't suspend disbelief in Floyd's older brother Douglas studying to be a doctor when the only evidence of this is that he 'graduated St Stephen’s at the top of the list and now here he was waltzing through medical school' (p118). Just like that, hey?!
That Douglas was regularly brow-beaten and out-wisecracked by his younger brother Floyd, further strained credibility.
Crèche-aged youngest brother Charlie rounded out the brothers. He provided the briefest glimpses of any caring side Floyd had.
Uncle Graham is the ex-football star and the butt of everybody's jokes, tragically trying to revive his magic far too late in life - but at least he had some sort of ambition.
The family's mother, Helen McGuinness, is Mordialloc's clan matron of underclass royalty. She has a job and works hard amidst family dysfunction and gets berated by her older boys when she's courted by 'old codgers'.
In Mordialloc, young, attractive females are 'kids'; sex objects who'll supposedly put out for swigs from a cheap bottle of Brown Brothers Riesling in a car parked by the beach to the sound of Meatloaf on cassette.
James Maclean writes with a gritty hard-boiled detective style of glib nutshell descriptions without much follow up. It works for minor characters, like the younger police officer 'with creases so sharp they could have peeled an orange' (p.137), but not for major characters like Douglas.
That said, the court scenes were most convincing, and the novel has some cool plot twists.
My curiosity about Floyd's fate kept me interested right to the end.
Maybe the best thing for him was to find his own way out of Mordialloc's social mire by whatever means he could.
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| James Maclean at Mentone Public Library: Saturday, 29 July 2017: http://mentonepubliclibrary.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/growing-up-aint-no-easy-rideas.html |
We were delighted and thoroughly entertained when James Maclean flew in from Turkey (now home for James),
to return to his childhood beginnings and speak at our library.
Highly intelligent,quick-witted and straight-shooting, James was more than willing to admit there was a little bit of his former adolescent self implanted in the bored, anti-education, under-achieving, unmotivated Floyd.
Seeing the expressive, articulate and enthusiastic author before us revealed that hope was not lost on the young man depicted in his novel. With a little bit of life experience, Floyd could find his awakening and go a long way.
...We will just have to wait for the sequel!
To purchase copies of "Mordialloc",
please visit James' publisher website:
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