Adelaide-residing author (and clinical psychologist) Alex Sawyer’s début novel is an epic, richly detailed drama which is typically being described as a ‘coming of age’ tale. And this is, to a point, although it’s certainly darker and trickier than that.
Despite the title, the main protagonist and narrator is Jimmy Quinn, a complex kid whose family lives in the fictional town of Edens Ridge outside Adelaide. As an admittedly naïve seven year old, he meets ‘Rat’ (actually Damien) down by the river and they quickly become very close, with the plot suggesting that this is going to be chiefly about their intense friendship during their formative years. And maybe more.
However, the narrative grows more complicated, as years go by and the chronology shifts, sometimes slightly confusingly. Jimmy’s parents clash often, and a string of new characters are introduced, especially cool Mo, Samira (whom Jimmy realises he loves rather too late), and Meg, the granddaughter from the somewhat feared Callaghan clan, a rich and influential local family.
Naturally, this is all leading somewhere deeply morally ambiguous, and when Rat becomes a drug dealer, things take an unsettling turn, as he’s implicated in a tragedy. And the increasingly self-loathing Jimmy ponders at length about the nature of guilt, and what that might mean for him and Rat.
Perhaps a little too long, it’s nevertheless difficult to pick where this could have been shortened or simplified, and there are also some Adelaidean elements that should make South Australian types smile. The younger characters here don’t like to leave the Ridge, and say so frequently, and yet at one point they travel to ‘The Bay’ on a hot summer day (and walk down Jetty Road), while later Jimmy and others drive into town and to the Courts. And we, of course, know exactly where they are.
And who knew that growing up in (or just outside) Adelaide could be so scary?
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