Shadowboxing

by Tony Birch

Shadowboxing is a collection of ten linked stories in the life of a boy growing up in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in the 1960s. A beautifully rendered time capsule, it captures a period of decay, turmoil, and change through innocent, unblinking eyes.

Michael’s family, led by his long-suffering mother, live as though under siege, surviving his father’s drinking and rage as well as the forces of ‘urban renewal’. Their neighbourhood is a world of simple pleasures as well as random brutality; of family life and love as well as violence and tragedy. As Michael experiences all this with a combination of wonder and fear, he matures into a sensitive adult who can forgive but never forget.

Shadowboxing is a riveting story of loss and permanence, power and weakness, stoicism and resistance.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Australia, Book Club, Indigenous, School, Contemporary

193 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Tony Birch is the author of Ghost River, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and Blood, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. He is also the author of Shadowboxing and three short story collections, Father’s Day, The Promise and Common People. In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Tony is a frequent contributor to ABC local and national radio and a regular guest at writers’ festivals. He lives in Melbourne and is a Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University.

Reviews

[Michael Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning book that defies easy categorisation - is it a novel or short stories? Fiction or memoir? Whichever, it's a brief and powerful tale of growing up in a poor, difficult family in inner-city Melbourne in the 60s and 70s. The city leaps off the page and the characters are breathtaking - the linked stories paint a broader picture than a simple memoir or novel could have done and some (The Lesson and The Butcher's Wife) are among the most memorable shorts I've read. The writing is concise and spare, with no punches pulled. Highly, highly recommended.

[Kylie Purdie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this and Birch's other collection of short stories - Father's Day - in one day. That is how compelling I found his story telling.
I was lead to these books via an interview Richard Fidler did with Birch on his radio show Conversations. You can find the interview here - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2...
The interview is well worth listening to as it highlights the link between Birch's stories and his own experience growing up in Melbourne in the 1960's. In appears that in many stories it is a case of change the names to protect the (not so) innocent!
The stories in Shadowboxing are all linked through the main character Michael. He describes his life growing up in inner Melbourne in the 1960's. Each story shows a snapshot of growing up on tough streets during tough times. Using his own experiences lends Birch's stories an air of authenticity. The reader is transported to the time and place of the story, sharing the joys and fears of the characters and allowing the reader for a short time to live in a completely different time.

[Emma Darragh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this cycle so easy to pick up and become immersed in. Each story is a gem and the final two really round out the cycle beautifully.

[Hannah Tillermuir · Rating 5 out of 5]

All a book has to do is be set in Melbourne and I’ll probably love it, but this one was especially good

[amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

an evocative portrait of life growing up in fitzroy. this is a real time capsule of a book and a true pleasure to read

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic! This is gritty, nostalgic, wretched stuff unapologetically capturing a vanished era.

“It’s full of no-hopers, dagoes, and Abos. Which one are you?” I’m sure my father was asked something similar when he immigrated to Fitzroy in the 60s.

[Zahra G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea why my friends hate this book so much

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shadowboxing is the first Tony Birch text I have read and it will surely not be the last. The short stories centre around Michael, a young boy growing up in Melbourne during the 1960s.
The short stories are brutal, beautiful, blunt, Australian, raw, and a real tear jearker. I was surprised by how mesmerised I was by the story overall. The short stories are pieced together so well.

A hugely recommended read!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this gritty, collection of stories about a young boy growing up in inner city Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in the 60’s. Micheal and his family, lead by his mother, live in fear of his father’s rage as well as the many changes taking place in their working class suburb. We hear Michael’s stories of what it was like to grow up during the 60’s as he grows into a sensitive adult. An easy read, read it overnight, loved the author’s style of story telling.

[Giovanna Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching, raw, great short stories about a family growing up in the streets of Fitzroy. Many topics still, unfortunately, relevant today. Wanted to read all the stories, as hard as they are. Sensitive.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There is sometimes a great distance between what you ask for and what you get.” - From The Lesson, Chapter 2

This series of short stories follows Michael as he grows up in 1960‘s Fitzroy. Sharp, observant, heartbreaking: as a collection this works very well, yet each story could also be read alone.

[Luke C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. Birch takes you to a part of Australia that seems so familiar but so unknown - rough, hard, working-class but soft and empathetic at the same time. The short stories explore the streets through the eyes of Michael Byrne as he grapples with anger, violence, love and grief.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt so real, such spirit and sense of place disjointed.

[Neane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure if Tony was inspired by the experiences of his own life in writing this book, but I resonated with it all. It is easy to sympathise with Michael as he deals with the struggles of addiction, isolation and grief. And having the last few stories to show his adulthood makes you reflect on his abilities to break generational cycles. Fantastic!

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“I want to see it here, all come together, here. Move around. Keep up on your toes. Work the combinations. And don’t go headhunting too early. Work him around the body. Wear the body down first and then punish him upstairs.”

This is a series of stories about the life of Michael, a young boy growing up under the tyranny of an abusive, alcoholic father and of all the fear and anxiety that comes along with that. There’s still, beauty, adventure and excitement to be found between the cracks and spaces. But of course there are some serious repercussions and consequences when these adventures are taken too far.

“Both the house and the street were at their best during the night, when little was happening, when none of us had anywhere to go, when there were no street battles to fight, and no pasts to confront.”

This is a violent, gritty piece of fiction set in the mean streets of working class Fitzroy during the 60s. This was long before it was the gentrified suburb it is today, awash with cool cafes and boho restaurants, frequented by artists, hipsters and the bourgeoisie.

We see that this was a period of changes for the suburb, a time where the old was making way for the new and the upheaval and uncertainty that created amongst the people it affected the most. Themes of death, decay and chronic illness are also explored making for some heavy reading, yet Birch balances this with some humour and more importantly, some good, strong writing.

“Get used to it, love. It passes as they get older. They get slower and soften with the years. or if you’re real lucky, they drop dead.”

[Ralphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My search for ‘The Great Australian Novel’ continues and although most categorise this as a collection of short stories, I think it fits the bill as a novel, and a brilliant one at that.
The short stories connect intricately and largely explore the fractured relationship between father and son. But other themes like mateship, family, violence, and discrimination are also covered in a way that sometimes shocks, but also provokes deep thought.
I’ve read it several times and each time the symbolism of the final scene breaks this reader’s heart.
I rate ‘Shadowboxing’ really highly. I have it at number 10 in my ever evolving list of ‘’Great Australian Novels’.
😎👍📚✅

[Bec · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Shadowboxing, the life of a son is chronicled through ten short stories. Picking through his memories, we follow Michael from childhood through to becoming a father himself. Suburban Melbourne is the living backdrop of the pieces, and the changing scenery is as important as the evolution of the characters themselves.

Whether you've lived in Melbourne a day, a lifetime, or never stepped foot on Smith St in your life, you'll feel grounded in the pages of Shadowboxing. The spaces are as real in history as for the reader. When the Red House is demolished the loss is personal. Each insult, each punch, each silence is felt beyond the pages. I moved to Melbourne nearly ten years ago. I didn't see the Smith St of Shadowboxing, and yet it seems as though I've walked it myself, that I know both the street and its characters intimately as their lives spill out of rented houses and onto the now familiar pavement.

Read my full review here.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for school, was fun

[Declan Melia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit Rocky.

Tony Birch takes us through the derelict and dusty alleyways of memory to recount ten short anecdotes about growing up working class in 1940s Fitzroy. His father drinks, his mother suffers, and he grows up externally tough but internally vulnerable. Includes references to boxing and all the associated obvious metaphors.

While the settings and narration of these ten stories were not without some charm, they are rendered completely devoid of creativity or vaguest attempt at originality. The tone, premise, and themes are so overwrought it would be impossible to pick his writing style out on a criminal line up of Australian writers who mistake realism for originality. The result is wholly joyless.

Birch is aiming for a sort of beer-soaked philosophy between the clipped, steely sentences, alluding to the interplay of fate and will, of the mystery of escaping our destiny. He sometimes arrives at something resembling homespun wisdom, but the ponderous, familiar tropes he uses to guide us there are as beige as a faded photograph.

Of course, originality may not be the point, these stories want to tell us something true about everyday life, so why shouldn’t they reflect the same? The paradox here is that even if every scar-tissue wielding survivor has a unique tale to tell, they’re not all worth hearing. They say write about what you know, but what if what you know is known by almost everyone else?

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in the Sixties, this is a superb book, sent to me by Goodreads to review, crafted from ten meshed short stories, about a boy called Michael growing up into a sensitive and forgiving man. The stories cover themes such as domestic violence and revenge (The Butcher’s Wife), back street abortions (A Disposable Good), loss and bereavement (Ashes), mental illness (Redemption), delinquency and crime (The Sea of Tranquillity), and more, grittily set against a background of grinding poverty, decay and urban renewal, plus dependence on alcohol. So superbly written and evocative were they that I had to remind myself regularly that I was reading fiction and not facts that had been made into a documentary film playing in my head.

Michael does not forget his past and I will not forget this most brilliant Australian author: Tony Birch.

[Liz Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of ten linked short stories that follow a young boy growing up in the Melbourne suburbs, into adulthood. I found historical interest in the pages, as the personal tales reflected society at large. There is violence in the first few stories and I had a hard time reading them, but it was never gratuitous.
I think I would have been better reading one story and letting it go before reading the next. Reading them closely one after the other didn't give me time to fully take what the narrator was saying in each one. Reading them one after the other compressed time, rather than allowing to stretch out a bit.
I follow the work of Tony Birch and I plan on reading all his publications. This didn't grab me as much as Ghost River but there is still a sensitivity and an appeal to human nature that had me reading on.

[Lula Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

People familiar with Fitzroy and Carlton in Melbourne will find this an interesting read, particularly as it captures the clearance of 'slum' houses in Fitzroy in the 60s for the construction of public housing estate towers at Atherton Gardens. Sixty years later and we're in a similar cycle of destruction and construction with public housing in inner city Melbourne.
Shadowboxing reads like the memoir of an articulate uncle about his boyhood in Fitzroy and Richmond. Although it's fiction it feels like the protagonist 'Michael' is very close to Tony Birch. Some of the historical attitudes at the time were striking, for example about family violence.
There's a basic quality about the writing style but as a whole this collection of linked stories evoked a memorable picture of a time and place.

[Chris Patrick Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! Such a methodically written collection of tales that gives a thoughtful look into the love, loss, family and change throughout the protagonists life. To give one piece of advice - as much as I enjoyed this (and I did) I kind of read it “wrong”. It’s not a novel with developing storylines leading to a climatic culmination and ultimate resolution. It’s a series of stories from various parts of Michael Byrne’s life, eventually painting a whole picture but not telling a start/middle/end “story”. It’s a great book, but I probably reduced my own enjoyment of it early on by not understanding its goals. 5 stars, easily.

[Mark Pobar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good short read, a collection of short stories about dealing with demons of our childhoods, his tougher than most.

I grew up in the same era, so could identify with the times, if not the location.

I was struck mostly by the strength of women in those years, how they endured and still raised kids to be good people. The domestic violence was not nice, but how can we understand the present without being aware of the dark past.

Enjoyed it even though it was a quick read because I wanted more of the story.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I just couldn’t put this book down, it was a wonderful style of writing which managed to get into the minds of a mother who has been beaten for many years, a father who’s wicked temper eventually caught up with him, a child who’s father was unpredictable and abusive, a troubled youth with years head of him - but cut too short.

For a short novel it really packed in just enough to give you insight into growing up in a very poor family in the changing scene of Melbourne.

[Taffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well written and grounded so heavily and realistically in its setting. If you live in Melbourne you can relate so deeply to these characters and settings, you've met these people, you have them in your family, you grew up with them in your street. You drive by that cemetery on your way to work. This work tugs at the heartstrings and captures a life so well in a series of short stories.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great fast-paced read. Shadowboxing brought back memories of growing up in Fitzroy in the 70's. Although I was only little I remember streets disappearing and the ugly high rises emerging. Tony Birch has captured the atmosphere with the interconnecting stories about Michael and his family. I was impressed by his mother's reaction in "A Disposable Good".

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 3 out of 5]

loosely linked collection of short stories about working class childhood in what was then the rough working class suburbs of Fitzroy.
I enjoyed it although it didn't strike me as stunning in any way. I'm told and have read that this author is one of the up and coming big names of Australian literature so I might check out some of his other books and see if the hype is justified.

[Zip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up as a immigrant in Melbourne (albeit at a much later time) meant that I very easily and deeply connected to this book, which made it all the more harder to read.
Birch is a master of what he writes and I felt so incredibly immersed in Michael's story that I put off finishing this for two weeks so I could live in blissful ignorance about everything that happens.

[Mark McGowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel, which was written as a collection of short stories. I found it to be incredibly well written. The themes of masculinity, loss and violence were really well explored. The humour was great !

I’m a sucker for some working class fiction, especially when the protagonist is a tender, complex boy xxx