Dim's Write Stuff

This adult fiction review is sneaking in because it encompasses so many of life's most endearing, harrowing and heartbreaking moments in one glorious golden family-orientated glow, that I believe its appeal is further reaching than just as an 'adult read'.  So here we go ... The hardcover art of this novel portrays a duality of summer nonchalance and flamboyant gaiety, a bit like a freshly shaken frozen margarita. But don’t let that fool you for beyond the dancing title belies a story with substantial heart and a unique poignant jocularity for which author, Steven Rowley is renowned. There is nothing feeble or wanting in The GUNCLE rather it exudes a sticky kind of specialness that adheres to your innards in the most glorious replenishing way, as opposed to a need-to-retch-it-out way. It's summer in California, a land of 360 days of searing sunshine and infinite possibilities. It’s taken less the four years for former TV sitcom star, Patrick O’Hara to acclimatize a...

If you’re after the sort of novel that lulls you effortlessly into mindless slumber, this book is not for you! Where do I begin? Luckily for us all, Craig Silvey begins with the end in his latest rousing novel, Honeybee . It’s an end some of us may have contemplated at some point in life especially those of more tender years enduring emotional turmoil.  It’s a beginning that catapults the reader into the tortured psyches of Sam and Vic, immediately establishing a powerful rapport between them and us, powerful enough to evoke first-class-page-turner status. Sam is teetering on the brink of fifteen but his heart still beats with tween-aged naivety and contorts with young adult anxieties. Fatherless since birth, Sam scrambles from one decrepit address to another with his young incomeless mother. Their bond is tighter than spandex but her creative dreams are stymied by the need to make their frayed ends meet and a spiralling moral compass. Sam looks forward to growing up just like ...

Hugo is anything but one-dimensional. He is also a paint palette away from dull but he feels grey on the inside because of the curious, rainbow coloured mark he was born with. Despite the assurances that it will ‘ just disappear’ from his family, the mark grows bigger and brighter, so conspicuous and unavoidable that his grey turns into abject sorrow.   Hugo is unable to love the mark that signifies his difference so unmistakably, yet he cannot deny, it is part of the person he is; part of his whole. His wise grandmother assures him his difference is as wonderful as he is but this does not alleviate the isolation that engulfs him. As with many youngsters presented with this type of identity verification, Hugo embarks on a search for self and someone else who might be just like him. It’s a long rainbow-less trip until, finally, across a crowded train platform, he spots a flash of red and orange and blue and green. Someone marked like him. He reaches for her but the crowd ...