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Sly
“I denied Sly Fox at least three times before I was caught being his friend...The illicitness made it all the more precious. To think now that we were just six years old.”Sly Fox lives with his one-legged alcoholic father, incontinent Communist grandfather and his dog, Comrade, in a run-down beach shack filled with history you can touch. Intrigued by Sly and his fascinating family history, new boy in town Brett 'Harry' Harrison strikes up an unlikely and forbidden friendship with him.Growing up together in a small coastal town of Little Bulli in the early 1970's, the boys discover the delights of sex, drugs and Brandivino. But their great passion is the compelling story of Sly's pioneering ancestors, as revealed by the Fox family chronicles. Their friendship is inviolable, or so they think, until a shocking act of betrayal alters the course of their lives...
- GenresFiction
365 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 5, 2013
First read this at 14 years old in high school, I loved it then and love it now at 25, I have re-read it many times and still enjoy it and discover new facets of the story, as my understanding of the reality of the world changes. Sly is a wonderful read and surprisingly hopeful. Such a beautiful portrait of friendship, loyalty and the adventure of growing up ♡ probably my favorite book of all time ♥
October 25, 2022
At first I wasn’t going to read this book because it sounded too much like Breath. But other than the setting and form of the protagonists it’s a great, unique read.
October 23, 2011
At times humorous and sexy, at other times intriguing and sad, this story is incisively simple. Six-year-old Brett Harrison moves with his family to Little Bulli, a small town along the coastline of Sydney. Here he accidentally befriends Tom 'Sly' Fox, and together they become the outcasts of Little Bulli.
Here they experience life as it were in a provincial coastal town: rash, cruel, spasmodic, sensational, and absolutely riveting. They suffer the rituals of growing up, learning from one another about infatuation and jealousy, fidelity and friendship, sex and bad breath, and the all-clinching self-identity.
The narrative cruises along at speed limit, and you're unable to take your foot off the pedal for most of the journey. But suddenly it slows to breathliser-momentum, pitching the story back by several generations. This is done conveniently through a renegade diary that the various characters take turns reading or explaining, and allows the reader to absorb the historic details of Sly Fox's ancestors, and their settlement in Australia.
In some ways this feels like patchwork, stitched in at random to give the story a quilted feeling. These snippets are interesting in and of themselves, and don't really add any narrative value to the main plot. However, the sentiments and morals of which culminate in a prolific and invigorating debating competition nearing the end of the story.
Most of the plot was well-paced, but it rushes all too suddenly into the future. (LOL! Sounds like a bumpy ride, jumping back and forth in time.) While it doesn't leave painful loose ends to irritate the reader (they're actually quite intricately knotted and tassled ... the ends, that is, not the readers), it feels as though the author had an appointment with the book's end and rushed to meet it. I'd have enjoyed another fifty pages or so delving into the adult lives of the characters.
It was easy to read and enjoyable, and the characters readily likeable for their contradictions. Harry's keeping-up-with-the-Jones parents, Sly's eccentric and one-legged painter father, the smattering of inambitious, troubled and rascally youth, the festering townsfolk, and the general conservative populous of a parochial town in 60's and 70's Australia.
On reflection, the author has very cleverly imbued the main characters with the motif and geographical setting of his narrative plot. They are young, nubile, vulnerable, querying, at once propelled by and distasteful of tradition, and in search of utopia while minding the sensibilities of pragmatism. There is torment over the past, and skepticism about the future, but there is also guts. Balls. Punch. Oomph. It may not be the Man Booker Prize winner, but this is Australia, and I'm proud to call it home.
LOL! At the end of this review I have a patchwork quilt with tassles.
Here they experience life as it were in a provincial coastal town: rash, cruel, spasmodic, sensational, and absolutely riveting. They suffer the rituals of growing up, learning from one another about infatuation and jealousy, fidelity and friendship, sex and bad breath, and the all-clinching self-identity.
The narrative cruises along at speed limit, and you're unable to take your foot off the pedal for most of the journey. But suddenly it slows to breathliser-momentum, pitching the story back by several generations. This is done conveniently through a renegade diary that the various characters take turns reading or explaining, and allows the reader to absorb the historic details of Sly Fox's ancestors, and their settlement in Australia.
In some ways this feels like patchwork, stitched in at random to give the story a quilted feeling. These snippets are interesting in and of themselves, and don't really add any narrative value to the main plot. However, the sentiments and morals of which culminate in a prolific and invigorating debating competition nearing the end of the story.
Most of the plot was well-paced, but it rushes all too suddenly into the future. (LOL! Sounds like a bumpy ride, jumping back and forth in time.) While it doesn't leave painful loose ends to irritate the reader (they're actually quite intricately knotted and tassled ... the ends, that is, not the readers), it feels as though the author had an appointment with the book's end and rushed to meet it. I'd have enjoyed another fifty pages or so delving into the adult lives of the characters.
It was easy to read and enjoyable, and the characters readily likeable for their contradictions. Harry's keeping-up-with-the-Jones parents, Sly's eccentric and one-legged painter father, the smattering of inambitious, troubled and rascally youth, the festering townsfolk, and the general conservative populous of a parochial town in 60's and 70's Australia.
On reflection, the author has very cleverly imbued the main characters with the motif and geographical setting of his narrative plot. They are young, nubile, vulnerable, querying, at once propelled by and distasteful of tradition, and in search of utopia while minding the sensibilities of pragmatism. There is torment over the past, and skepticism about the future, but there is also guts. Balls. Punch. Oomph. It may not be the Man Booker Prize winner, but this is Australia, and I'm proud to call it home.
LOL! At the end of this review I have a patchwork quilt with tassles.
December 25, 2013
I originally read this when it came out, I loved it. I read it again a number of years later and again loved it. It is a great tale of adolescence, friendship and adventure.
July 25, 2015
Not bad.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews