Forever Young

Glenroy Series #5

by Steven Carroll

And is nostalgia not so much a longing for a place or a time, as a longing for youth itself?

Forever Young is set against the tumultuous period of change and uncertainty that was Australia in 1977. Whitlam is about to lose the federal election, and things will never be the same again. the times they are a'changing. Radicals have become conservatives, idealism is giving way to realism, relationships are falling apart, and Michael is finally coming to accept that he will never be a rock and roll musician.

A subtle and graceful exploration of the passage of time and our yearning for the seeming simplicities of the past, Forever Young is a powerfully moving work - clear. beautiful, affecting - by one of our greatest authors.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Novels, 21st Century, Australia

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Steven Carroll is an Australian novelist. He was born in 1949 in Melbourne, Victoria and studied at La Trobe University. He has taught English at secondary school level, and drama at RMIT. He has been Drama Critic for The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne.

Steven Carroll is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne with his partner, the writer Fiona Capp, and their son. As of 2019, he also writes the non-fiction book review column for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this novel - maybe I am still be a Melburnian at heart so can readily relate to the characters and settings of Carroll's Glenroy novels, of which this is the 5th. I am also approximately the same age as one of the main characters of the series, Michael, so again I can identify with the issues and experiences of the times of which Carroll writes. I haven't enjoyed as much the novels Carroll has written based on T S Eliot's Four Quartets, although I recognise the seriousness and ambition of their intent. Perhaps I am just a sucker for nostalgia??

Forever Young is set in 1977 in the lead up to the election about to be lost by the Australian Labor Party after it has been ousted from power in 1975. There are many references to the 'Whitlam years' which resonate with Australian readers as they relate to a watershed period in Australian political and social life.

This is certainly not a page turner - rather it is a meditation on an era and on the changing life directions of each of its characters. Michael is leaving the band he has been performing in for some years and moving to Europe to try his hand at writing. He is also leaving his girlfriend, Mandy. Michael's mother, Rita (with whom we are very familiar from previous Glenroy novels) has spontaneously left her job and is about to travel overseas for the first time. Peter is a university contemporary of Michael's and now a conservative politician who gets involved in some very murky Chinese whispers. Art is an artist who has left Australia many years before and is living in Italy. All these characters have connections with each other, some in surprising and unpredictable ways.

The tone of this novel is ruminative and elegiac, its style simple without being simplistic. While completely accessible, its ideas are able to send the reader into extended reflections on relationships, the passing of time, changing cities and cultures and Australian identity. It is rather strange to have a novel about growing older called 'Forever Young'. This was part of the puzzle and attraction of the book for me. I think Carroll understands how we take the past with us into the new paths we tread, that parts of ourselves remain youthful even as we age and that through art and literature, the past is forever young, forever new.

[Cath Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have just abandoned this book half read in an airport, which I think gives you the general idea, although sometimes I do that because I hope someone special will pick up a truly great novel at a desperate moment in their life and it will stop them from hijacking a plane...not the case with this one. Life is too short and bags are too heavy to carry this all the way to Fiji. Which is a shame because I loved a few of Carroll's others. This one was just like "I want to say something profound and poignant but I can't quite decide what it is so I'm going to say the same sentences a few times in slightly different ways over and over again." And I did not like the alliterative combination of Michael and Mandy :( ...I hope I'm not just being harsh about this because of the fact that my plane has been delayed by four hours and I'm now going to arrive in Suva for my work trip at 4 in the morning.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read some really good books so far this year, but, this is my favourite. I will be disappointed (almost) if I read one that betters it. Unlike many authors who write to impress us their vast and superior knowledge of language (patronizing?), Carroll writes with a subtle, elegant and unaffected simplicity, without being simple. This series has always resonated strongly with me because I was born about the same time as Michael and lived in a new suburb of dirt roads and stick houses. Rita could have been my mother although Vic, thank God, was not my father - however I did know a Vic.

I found the ending very satisfying and I know there is a sixth book planned, but, I think this would be a good place for Steven Carroll to leave his characters to the care of his readers - I don't think I want the rest of their lives laid out.

[Belinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow and repetitive in it's style of writing I quite enjoyed the story and characters. There is a lot of rumination which I personally quite like. The descriptions of Melbourne and the Whitlam era were interesting. I liked the way different characters were tied together.
I am not compelled however to read the other books in this series (at this time anyway). In any case I think Rita is my favourite character.

[Leah Cripps · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and repetitive, unworthy of a miles franklin award. This took me so long to finish because I kept stopping all the time and then skim read the last 30 pages just to get it finished.

[Cass Moriarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forever Young, by Steven Carroll, won the Miles Franklin, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and (jointly) the Prime Minister's Literary Award. Clearly it has been recognised for its literary merit, but my feelings about it are torn - while I found some aspects of the characters compelling, and the way the plot was randomly connected to be rather clever, I had trouble engaging fully with the narrative and found myself wandering off at times. Perhaps part of the trouble is that this is apparently book number 5 in a series of 6; I have not read Carroll before, and so was not familiar with his previous development of these same characters. I came to this book without any prior knowledge of Rita and Vic, their family and their story.
The book is set over a couple of months in 1977, a tumultuous period in Australian politics, with Whitlam about to lose the federal election. Through the various sections, we are given perspectives from different characters, and we are returned to each of them three or four times over the course of the novel. First is Michael, a 30-something who has accepted that his dream of becoming a rock and roll musician is not going to eventuate. We are treated to a rambling, stream-of-consciousness type of interior monologue from Michael about his life, his loves, his passions and his day-to-day activities. His every thought is documented and analysed. Next we meet Michael's friend, Peter, a political mover and shaker, who provides the most interesting plot line in the book, as he reveals information (which may or may not be true) in the form of a leak, which then takes on a life of its own, with tragic consequences for another friend, and reverberations into his personal life for the remainder of the novel. We meet Mandy, Michael's recent ex lover, and Rita, Michael's mother, who is probably the most interesting character, as she climbs aboard the 'tram of one's fancy' and ditches her sedate life as a high-end retail shop assistant to become a travel and tour guide. I only realised after I finished the novel that Rita and her husband Vic were the subject of the previous novels in the series, a fact that, had I known earlier, might have made a difference in my reading of this one. We also meet Art, an expat Australian living in Italy, creating art and musing over where his life has ended up.
And so we go between the perspectives of these characters, and share the journeys of their interior lives, and are privy to their existential thoughts.
What I most enjoyed about the book was the apparently random and casual links that were made every so often between these characters ... one character might, in the middle of a life crisis, happen to notice someone else on the beach ... and later we realise that the person on the beach is another major character ... that their paths have crossed, if ever so slightly. This is repeated to great effect with a couple of the major plot points, so that one person's actions have a ripple effect into the lives of others, or result in circumstances that could not have been foreseen.
The book is written in a certain style that some will find intensely intriguing and thought-provoking, and others will just find irritating. I swung between the two quite often during my reading of the book.
One theme that I did find fascinating was - as represented in the title of the book, Forever Young - the idea of youth and the inexorable march into old age. I'm guessing this theme would have even more meaning if I had read the other books in the series.
One quote that particularly struck me: 'Let our children know...that which is not spoken. Let them know, let them know, that we tried. In our way. That we grew older for them, that they might not grow old. That we lived the wrong life for them, that they might live the right one. That we suffered for them, even before they were born, that they might not. And if we snapped and shouted and slapped their love away or brought damage down upon them, it was not for want of trying not to. For we tried, in our way. We tried. And if they ever should ask, let them know.' And later... 'That we were damaged before we came to them, and if we failed to keep our damage to ourselves, it wasn't for lack of trying.' This theme resonated with me, as did the book's general ideas of youth being wasted on the young, wisdom being acquired with age, children becoming independent and cutting family ties, and older people searching for what they failed to find - or to accomplish - during their youth.
This is a novel of big ideas and broad, enigmatic philosophical debate. For me, I found it less like an engaging story and more like a theoretical treatise on politics, culture and society.

[John Kidman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m glad it’s over. Not my cup of tea. The maximum excitement for Rita was two tram rides. Excessively wordy without going anywhere. I could not see the point of the Whitlam connections to this book. I certainly won’t be signing up for any others in the series.

[Liz Phillips · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really could not get into this rambling story. As a Melbournian I tried my hardest but it just didn't sing. Abandoned 50 pages in!

[Kerri Jones]

While the concept and era seem really interesting this book was full of too many ideas and not enough narrative to keep me going.

[Sarah Deuis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like the first half of this book, awful male characters making life destroying decisions. So much so that I toyed with not finishing it. I'm glad I did as the second half made me feel considerably more invested in the characters, which was my chief issue. The book overall made me feel pensive and it had a certain flavour of Helen Garner in the cynical depiction of Canberra. Not sure if reading the others in the set would have helped me appreciate this one. Also I was a newborn when Whitlam lost the election so no memories to resonate with. Anyway, four stars because it was well written and I did care about the characters by the end. But I still didn't love how it made me feel overall and fiction should give one joy and meaning ideally.

[Mark Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started off a dreadful bore but once i started catching its aim and measure it had some definite charms. The revenge thread was a nice surprise, and one which I sheepishly wish was further explored/indulged. A certain haunting meditative quality to the whole book but it manages to capture the vague spectre quality we think it’s going for while still moving things along well enough. Hard to place and properly rate but definitely glad we stumbled across this author in the local public library.

[Duncan Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This man writes very well indeed, although it is not my favorite genre.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had trouble immersing myself in this book so mostly skim read it which probably didn't do it justice.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another superb novel by Strven Carroll. It took me back to the late 1970s and memories that had layed dormant for a very long time. As only the best books can.

[Joanne Hamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I abandoned this book half way through which is rare.

[Tony Slate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many I abandoned ship 50 pages in as this was going nowhere very slowly. Thumbs down.

[Amanda Witt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The next in the series, filled with thoughts of the past, of people from the past, yet also looking towards the unknown future and what it might bring.

[Rosalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars
A rambling story, full of ideas and thoughts generated by the extraordinary social upheavals of the Whitlam era in Australia. It is set during the “revolutionary” period of the mid-seventies in Australia when many people were very involved in sexual politics, the anti-war movement, land rights, equal pay for women and environmental issues. The time line however is very brief - truncated between October and December 1977.
We are given brief details of several loosely linked characters and their immediate circumstances - each person is on a cusp, deciding to modify their lives or having a change thrust upon them by one of the other characters’ actions. The overall theme is about nostalgia or what is nostalgia - a romantic idea of home or better days – and the need to move on and break free or accept that what we are living is all that there is. It is also about the idea of growing up and/or growing older – leaving our youth and youthful ideals behind or trying to stay forever young…
Art, a painter, escaped from Australia with some of his artist friends as soon as possible after World War Two ended. Before the 1970’s Australians generally did not believe in their worthiness or honour their own artists, inventors or creators and many people went overseas to find success. In 1977, Art is living in a small village in Italy and painting images of the Melbourne where he once lived, from memory. The new era in Australia is promoting the local artistic industry and many old friends have urged Art to return. But he cannot return to Australia as then his creation of his old world depicted in his art would be destroyed, he knows it will have changed. Art’s routine however, is disrupted by a visit from a successful colleague who also moved overseas (but to England where he did establish a fine reputation) and is exhibiting at an arts festival in a nearby village. Sam brings some eucalyptus leaves which he burns on Art’s fire and it is the scent which brings on his feeling of nostalgia. Nevertheless, he rationalises that this longing for the place he left many years ago could never be relocated as it no longer exists in the same time and place.
In contrast a much younger character called Michael, deliberately and abruptly splits from his old life; resigns from his cover band, even sells his cherished guitar and brutally severs his relationship with his girlfriend with little justification and no real explanation apart from saying he is going overseas. Michael’s mother Rita is also ready for a change and has been biding her time since husband, Vic departed and she realises Michael is really an adult so she really is free to live her own life. Rita ‘drops out’ for a day from work and goes to the beach where she reflects and daydreams but on her way home, books a European tour. This sudden change in her day to day life is an epiphany that launches a total change in her future. There is also a link between Rita and Sam who she encounters briefly in a café with Art in Italy…
Another character, Peter, is a ministerial staff employee who spends his working weeks in Canberra and returns to his family in Melbourne each weekend. He plays “God” with Beth, an older political reporter, by telling her a story that he fabricates (about Whitlam being sacked by his party before the next election) simply to see and gloat (privately) about the political fallout if and when the story is taken up by the press. Peter hopes that his successful manipulation of events, when later revealed to some important players will resurrect his stalled political career. However, when the event does not eventuate and his story dwindles from the headlines, Peter had miscalculated the repercussions for the reporter. The whole scenario backfires on Peter when Trix, Beth’s partner, subtly accuses Michael of annihilating Beth and nearly destroys his marriage by sending items from Beth’s apartment to Peter’s wife.
The conversation between Michael’s abandoned girlfriend (Mandy) and Trix (after they meet by chance at a party) depicts this idea of youthful ideals.
‘I don’t care’…
‘I did once’
‘Yes, didn’t we all?’
‘But I don’t care anymore…
‘Perhaps I will again. But I’ll never care the way I did.’
‘No, you can’t. You can only care like that once.’
It is an interesting book with many ideas that resonated with me, and I enjoyed the simple twists of fate when the characters briefly touch on each other – so it kept me reading until the end. My main disappointment is with the descriptive passages which although delivering fine images throughout, I thought were too long and repetitive.

[Catherine Hanrahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best books I read last year was ‘A World of Other People‘ by Stephen Carroll. Forever Young is the fifth of his Glenroy series, a collection of stand-alone stories that follow suburban couple Vic and Rita through much of Australian twentieth century history.

This story focuses on their son Michael, who is about to leave Australia to follow his dream to be a writer in Paris. The year is 1977 and Gough Whitlam is fighting his last election. Carroll’s style, which he describes as ‘circular’ in an interview he gave at the Sydney Writer’s Festival last year, is again deployed in this story. It is a way of restating, circling around and through an idea and playing with words to render it, by subtle repetition, in ever greater detail. It worked well for me in ‘A World of Other People’ but in this story, I found it wasn’t as effective.

Perhaps it was because I had a much stronger recognition of this world and I felt impatient to read about it in more detail and so the limited scenes felt a bit frustrating. And yet, despite the slow pace, there was still the clever plotting, that although limited, deployed such devastating cause and effect – the characters in this story don’t get away with their actions scot-free.

A lot of this story relies on the internal discourse the characters go through as they break up love affairs, make life-changing decisions and take revenge. And that aspect of it is enjoyable but I still wished for more and perhaps that was because the main characters seem only to interact with each other in a limited way. It really feels like a series of intersecting stories of a handful of main characters, none of whom is more dominant than another.

The theme of this story is all about growing up, leaving the past behind and how we remember. There were lots of great and true observations around these ideas but none of them felt surprising or unique to me. And so, though I thought the writing was great, I just found it difficult to engage with this story. Carroll has said in an interview that he was determined not to write social realism, of which he says its time has passed. Social realism is what I read and write and so perhaps that explains my ambivalence.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forever Young is the fifth in Steven Carroll’s ‘Glenroy’ novels, and I think it is a novel best read as part of the set. It’s perhaps possible to read it without having read its predecessors, but IMO the characters of Michael and Rita need the back stories of the other novels to become truly ‘alive’.

Readers were introduced to the family of Michael, Rita and Vic in The Art of the Engine Driver (2001), a novel set in the 1950s in what was then outer suburban Melbourne, identified as Glenroy though this isn’t stated in the story. Glenroy is one of those nondescript suburbs that we used to drive through on our way to the airport before they built the Tullamarine Freeway. Those ‘outer’ suburban houses are now becoming gentrified ‘middle’ suburban, because the urban fringe now extends out to 40km from the Melbourne CBD, and Melbourne’s population has risen from just over a million in the 1950s to over 4 million. Carroll’s achievement in The Art of the Engine Driver was to bring the people of a nondescript suburb to life, so that readers invested in their subsequent stories in The Gift of Speed (2004) and The Time We Have Taken (2007), which won the Miles Franklin Award.

The prequel, Spirit of Progress (2011) (see my review) vividly rendered the sense of restless intellectuals and artists being ‘free’ captives during the war when overseas travel to escape the cultural vacuum was out of the question. This prequel broadened the canvas because it introduced characters who were artists loosely based on well-known Australian artists of the period. Sam makes a reappearance in Forever Young (set in 1977) and he surprised me by being the character I was most interested in. Having left Australia to settle in Tuscany, Sam spends his quiet days painting the Melbourne that he remembers. He has never returned, not even when his parents died, but a visit from a friend who brings the evocative scent of gum leaves with him draws him into a nostalgic meditation about the passage of time...

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/10/15/fo...

[Lesley Moseley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 as I did enjoy most of it. The endless repetitions as an authors choice became irritating from the start. Surely not ALL the characters would have this same habit?

Being the same era I lived and worked in Melbourne, made it very realistic.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fifth book of what will be a 6 book series. The story takes place mostly in the months leading up to the 1977 election that saw Gough Whitlam lose after being ousted in what many to believe a CIA coup. It follows the main character in all the books, Michael as he lets go of his politics, music and girlfriend. The story also follows his girlfriend, Mother, and a couple of other characters all from his university days that were a decade earlier. Most of the threads have to do with letting go of the past and moving into new territory, both figuratively and literally. I enjoyed the book, although at times it was hard to follow the threads.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carroll's writing continues to shine. He describes the day-to-day life of Michael, Rita and some of the people they come across in so much detail and clarity. Michael has left his childhood and early adult hood behind and now is acting like a mature man. But there is not much plot in this one. There is a lot of sadness and reflection on the demise of Whitlam which may make this book a bit unfathomable to non-Australian readers

[Chris Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have really enjoyed Steven Carroll's novels and enjoyed Forever Young, bringing Michael and his mother info the 1970s. While I am too young to remember the Whitlam years, they do shape Australia today and this story offered a nuanced insight into that time of tumult. I like the author's clear prose but found myself hoping for more drama. However, life is not always like that.

[Corey Zerna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rita was my favourite character in this book - i love characters who wait until their late life (quite often after their partners departure) to undergo radical transformations

[David Beards · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange read. No real plot. More Freudian ramblings of characters inner thoughts than a fiction narrative. Not without its charm and held the interest.

[Scott Fisher · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst books that I have ever read, maybe the worst. Nothing interesting happens AT ALL. None of the characters are interesting. None of the characters are likeable. None of their decisions matter AT ALL. None of their actions raised any emotion in me. One guy is bad but presented in a way that offers zero insight into his behaviour. Nothing is resolved so you spend hundreds of pages following boring people with a boring narrator offering boring "insights" into a boring world. I have read that it is part of a series so maybe that would make their actions interesting (but I will never know because I wouldn't read another of Carroll's books). Occasionally Carroll includes concepts in such a heavy handed way that he simply tells you what you should think or sounds like an old drunk telling you things that you already know (In both cases, you recoil trying to block out the stink and stupidity). There are multiple perspectives and the characters cross paths but other than one inexplicable fling, the paths cross for no reason whatsoever (and so tediously in most cases). But if there is a to be only one charge, it is that the writing is beyond awful. I hated every sentence (except ONE sentence about the wind) because of the failure to include anything engaging. No interesting verbs, no metaphors, no alliteration, no imagery, no adjectives, no choice nouns. Many of the sentences were so dull and expository that I couldn't believe it wasn't written by a ten year old "They were a good band" (or something to that effect, I got rid of the book because it was so appalling whereas I usually keep my books). And this isn't Hemingway, it is grade 5 writing. Absolutely horrible. Avoid at all costs.