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Burning Down
What if you had one last chance to make amends? Award-winning novelist Venero Armanno returns with a gripping novel about the high price of success. Charlie Smoke is living out his early retirement from the boxing ring as a bricklayer. It is the mid-1970s and he believes his best days are behind him. He's lost his wife and daughter to his questionable past, but when he meets Holly Banks and her teenage son, Ricky, he has a chance to do things differently. As an unlikely friendship develops with Ricky, Charlie is unwittingly pulled back into the gambling underworld he thought he'd left behind. In order to make a new future, first he must help settle some old scores. Burning Down is a searing new novel from acclaimed storyteller Venero Armanno about family, regret, love and the promise of salvation.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2017
3 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Venero Armanno
27 books50 followersVenero Armanno, the son of Sicilian migrants, was born in Brisbane. He has travelled and worked throughout the world. In 1995, 1997 and 1999 he lived and wrote in the Cité International des Arts, Paris. He is the author of Jumping at the Moon, a book of short stories (equal runner-up in the prestigious Steele Rudd Award) and eight novels, including The Volcano, which won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best Fiction Novel (2002) and was short-listed for the Courier Mail Best Book of the Year. His work has been published internationally and he is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 29, 2017
I couldn't put this book down for 2 days straight! Armanno has done it again - created a beautifully heartwarming story that is packed with action, intrigue and great drama. The most striking element of this book, however, is the portrayal of fathers and sons - so much pathos in exploring what can sometimes be a fraught, complicated relationship. And it's all tied together with a touching love story - this is one very satisfied reader :)
October 30, 2017
Burning Down (UQP 2017), the new novel by acclaimed author Venero Armanno, is a raw and gritty depiction of life in the ‘70’s in Brisbane’s seedy inner heart. Charlie Smoke was once a famous boxer but now he is a bricklayer, building other people’s dreams and fixing other people’s mistakes, with a body that betrays him with its boxer aches and pains. He is a flawed character with a dodgy past, a history that cost him his wife and daughter. By chance he meets Holly Banks, and her teenage son Ricky, and the pair open up in Charlie a vulnerability and a capacity for caring that he had forgotten was there. But Charlie’s old boxing mates and enemies, and the life of gambling, extortion, shakedowns, beatings, murder and payback that he thought he had left behind, catch up to him. He wants to make amends, both for those he’s lost, and for those with whom he wants to make new connections, but his dark past reaches its sticky tentacles into his present and threatens to destroy the new life he yearns to build for himself.
Burning Down is a smouldering novel that dips tantalisingly in and out of the characters’ pasts as they recall the sacrifices – and the betrayals – they made to get to where they are now. It’s a story with many themes. There is a gently developing romance that is all the more poignant because of the rough and tough backdrop against which it sits. There is a commentary about the relationships between fathers and sons, and between fathers and daughters, and also between mothers and sons, that explores the reverence with which the young view their parents, and how this is destroyed by the brutal truths of reality and time. The novel examines bullying, and self-confidence, and how the two are inextricably linked. It features ambition and greed, and what we are prepared to fight for. And it depicts the inevitability of ageing, the frailty of body but not spirit, and how, as we age, our body betrays the dreams of our younger selves. Above all, it is a story about family, about the sacrifices we make for love and honour, the guilt and shame we suffer through failure, and the promises we make to those we care about. The story climaxes with a crescendo of violence and tension that is uncomfortable to read but impossible to put aside.
The setting is quintessentially ‘70’s Brisbane, the dark underbelly of crime and gambling, mixed with sports betting, family business and the migrant experience. The landmarks are familiar, the history authentic and the characters recognisable. The diversity of Fortitude Valley and its surrounds is depicted through the environment, the food and the past-times. Charlie and the others of his generation are men who are getting older but still yearning for the strong, youthful men they once were; the younger characters are struggling to live up to their parents’ expectations and upholding their families’ reputations while staying true to their own values. The characters are empathetic and real, so that the violence and the ugliness, when it comes, is even more poignant and affecting.
This is a story about how old wounds reopen, and how your past catches up with you. It’s also about how help can materialise from unexpected places; how, just when you least expect it, someone you thought unreliable can come through with the promise of salvation. At the centre of the novel is boxing: training, fighting, competing, winning, losing, hurting and triumphing. The book takes grim and ugly subject matter and portrays it in language that is beautiful; it does indeed ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’.
Burning Down is a smouldering novel that dips tantalisingly in and out of the characters’ pasts as they recall the sacrifices – and the betrayals – they made to get to where they are now. It’s a story with many themes. There is a gently developing romance that is all the more poignant because of the rough and tough backdrop against which it sits. There is a commentary about the relationships between fathers and sons, and between fathers and daughters, and also between mothers and sons, that explores the reverence with which the young view their parents, and how this is destroyed by the brutal truths of reality and time. The novel examines bullying, and self-confidence, and how the two are inextricably linked. It features ambition and greed, and what we are prepared to fight for. And it depicts the inevitability of ageing, the frailty of body but not spirit, and how, as we age, our body betrays the dreams of our younger selves. Above all, it is a story about family, about the sacrifices we make for love and honour, the guilt and shame we suffer through failure, and the promises we make to those we care about. The story climaxes with a crescendo of violence and tension that is uncomfortable to read but impossible to put aside.
The setting is quintessentially ‘70’s Brisbane, the dark underbelly of crime and gambling, mixed with sports betting, family business and the migrant experience. The landmarks are familiar, the history authentic and the characters recognisable. The diversity of Fortitude Valley and its surrounds is depicted through the environment, the food and the past-times. Charlie and the others of his generation are men who are getting older but still yearning for the strong, youthful men they once were; the younger characters are struggling to live up to their parents’ expectations and upholding their families’ reputations while staying true to their own values. The characters are empathetic and real, so that the violence and the ugliness, when it comes, is even more poignant and affecting.
This is a story about how old wounds reopen, and how your past catches up with you. It’s also about how help can materialise from unexpected places; how, just when you least expect it, someone you thought unreliable can come through with the promise of salvation. At the centre of the novel is boxing: training, fighting, competing, winning, losing, hurting and triumphing. The book takes grim and ugly subject matter and portrays it in language that is beautiful; it does indeed ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’.
February 24, 2018
Venero Armanno is a great storyteller. My heart sank when I saw the cover of his latest novel because I detest boxing but I need not have worried. Burning Down is a thoroughly engaging story of redemption and reconciliation, and I liked it very much.
The novel is set in Brisbane in 1975, i.e. in the days before Brisvegas and gentrification, and also before the Fitzgerald Inquiry. While the mild summary from Wikipedia can’t really convey the way that event reverberated around Australia…
… it does hint at the extent to which corruption was endemic in all sorts of enterprises. Armanno’s novel reminded me of those B&W American gangster movies where all-powerful men ran their operations from derelict warehouses without interference from the police, and where victims going to the police for help or rescue were hopelessly naïve. In the world of Burning Down, only the younger generation consider it, and are soon disabused of their naïveté.
The central character is Charlie Smoke, a.k.a. Carmelo Fumo, a bricklayer with a mediocre boxing career long behind him. His former wife Tracy has died, and he is estranged from his 19-year-old daughter Sistina (Sissy) but he fills his days by taking pride in his work and running a training gym for young aspiring boxers in his rather shabby neighbourhood. One of the elements of this novel that I really like is the way Armanno explores ideas about boys learning masculinity, and we see this when Charlie’s new bricklaying job introduces Ricky, a troubled boy not coping well with warring parents. Charlie is captivated by Ricky’s mother Holly, with her violet eyes and blonde hair and trim body, but he is also intrigued by Ricky. Despite the boy’s flab and the truculence, Charlie sees potential in Ricky, and with his easy way of making conversation, he soon engages Ricky’s interest and yes, he eventually ends up in the gym with the other kids.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/25/b...
The novel is set in Brisbane in 1975, i.e. in the days before Brisvegas and gentrification, and also before the Fitzgerald Inquiry. While the mild summary from Wikipedia can’t really convey the way that event reverberated around Australia…
The Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (the Fitzgerald Inquiry) (1987–1989) into Queensland Police corruption was a judicial inquiry presided over by Tony Fitzgerald QC. The inquiry resulted in the deposition of a premier, two by-elections, the jailing of three former ministers and a police commissioner who was jailed and lost his knighthood. It also led indirectly to the end of the National Party of Australia’s 32-year run as the governing political party in Queensland.
… it does hint at the extent to which corruption was endemic in all sorts of enterprises. Armanno’s novel reminded me of those B&W American gangster movies where all-powerful men ran their operations from derelict warehouses without interference from the police, and where victims going to the police for help or rescue were hopelessly naïve. In the world of Burning Down, only the younger generation consider it, and are soon disabused of their naïveté.
The central character is Charlie Smoke, a.k.a. Carmelo Fumo, a bricklayer with a mediocre boxing career long behind him. His former wife Tracy has died, and he is estranged from his 19-year-old daughter Sistina (Sissy) but he fills his days by taking pride in his work and running a training gym for young aspiring boxers in his rather shabby neighbourhood. One of the elements of this novel that I really like is the way Armanno explores ideas about boys learning masculinity, and we see this when Charlie’s new bricklaying job introduces Ricky, a troubled boy not coping well with warring parents. Charlie is captivated by Ricky’s mother Holly, with her violet eyes and blonde hair and trim body, but he is also intrigued by Ricky. Despite the boy’s flab and the truculence, Charlie sees potential in Ricky, and with his easy way of making conversation, he soon engages Ricky’s interest and yes, he eventually ends up in the gym with the other kids.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/25/b...
April 19, 2018
This is the first of Armanno's books that I've encountered. What I really loved about it was how unique the story felt. I have a habit of trying to think of books similar to the one I'm reading while I'm reading it (a habit that comes from internships at publishing houses), but I could not think of any book that was even remotely like this one.
I adore books that feature older protagonists, simply because the publishing world seems to be oversaturated with YA books (and movies) at the moment, and it's a nice relief to hear about the problems and adventures of people from older generations. Charlie Smoke is a retired boxer nursing a shoulder injury and working a bricklaying job to pass the time. He also trains a group of neighborhood kids in boxing so that they will be able to protect themselves, since their neck of the woods is far from the safest one out there. He's been trying to reconnect with his daughter ever since his estranged wife's funeral, but she's made it clear she wants nothing to do with him; he takes a job rebuilding a woman's brick gate and finds himself getting closer to her and her family than he ever imagined.
I fell in love with Charlie's character, and with this book. I am not a fan of boxing or betting or the thug life, and this book contains all of those things--things I thought I had no interest in--but I still loved it. Armanno's boxing scenes are vivid and succinct, his narrative is in a minimalist style but still so full of heart, and his characters are unforgettable. I know I'll remember Charlie for years.
I adore books that feature older protagonists, simply because the publishing world seems to be oversaturated with YA books (and movies) at the moment, and it's a nice relief to hear about the problems and adventures of people from older generations. Charlie Smoke is a retired boxer nursing a shoulder injury and working a bricklaying job to pass the time. He also trains a group of neighborhood kids in boxing so that they will be able to protect themselves, since their neck of the woods is far from the safest one out there. He's been trying to reconnect with his daughter ever since his estranged wife's funeral, but she's made it clear she wants nothing to do with him; he takes a job rebuilding a woman's brick gate and finds himself getting closer to her and her family than he ever imagined.
I fell in love with Charlie's character, and with this book. I am not a fan of boxing or betting or the thug life, and this book contains all of those things--things I thought I had no interest in--but I still loved it. Armanno's boxing scenes are vivid and succinct, his narrative is in a minimalist style but still so full of heart, and his characters are unforgettable. I know I'll remember Charlie for years.
January 15, 2018
This is the second book I've read by Venero Armanno and once again, I'm blown away by his capacity to create rich, raw, rough, real male characters. And the relationships they have with the world, with kids, with partners, with community are always engaging. In this case, the scene is set in Brisbane, Australia in the 1970s with an overlay of a world of boxing in previous decades. It's a story that can almost be called a thriller because of the way the revelations happen but its also a story of families and relationships. Great read.
June 11, 2018
3.5 stars
March 12, 2020
Venero Armanno is an author well worth reading. His characters are realistic, flawed and tragic. This plot is exciting and tragic, but with just the right amount of hope sprinkled in.
March 18, 2021
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. A very good read.
March 3, 2019
Wow, I’m certainly going to hunt up this author; his descriptions of the shadier side of town and an ex-boxer’s life are very realistic and confronting. The chance of a new start and of getting his daughter back in his life are tantalisingly close, but his health and his past both pose a question mark. Well written, in depth characters and blood-on-the sawdust atmosphere.
January 15, 2019
An excellent read
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews