Coming of age… coming out. Sam wants life to be the way it is in books – one meaningful moment after the other – so exchanging the country for the city on the eve of a new millennium presents a wonderful world of possibility. Sex, drugs, sport, a new circle to move in, plus a chance to make money doing something he loves: his fresh start offers it all.
But reality soon becomes more potboiler than literary masterpiece, and Sam finds himself re-examining the books that have inspired him. Perhaps there he can find what he needs to be 'good at life' before his own spirals completely out of control.
Great coming of age story, set in Melbourne, about Sam a young guy down from the country, working through his sexuality and realising that you have to embrase life and be yourself to enjoy it.
A really enjoyable story, well paced, written well, believable characters and the right balance of description, action and talking.
Sam, the protagonist of this book moves from the countryside to urban Melbourne and in the process he learns about himself, his wants and his needs as meets many new people and experiences many things for the first time.
I liked this book. First of all it was set in Melbourne around a scene that that I'm rather familiar with.
This book is rather challenging, it doesn't serve everything too much to the reader. Instead it is left to to reader to make up their own mind about that the symbols mean or how they are supposed understand the protagonist. I liked this choice, but I'd be lying if I said I 'got' the entire book in the first reading. I felt that Conyers did a good job of expressing all the highs, lows and complexities of Sam's character.
The tone of this book is a fairly bitter-sweet and ambivolant.
While reading this book I often wondered what the title meant. Without spoiling the text I think that it means: understanding and recognising your own limitations and boundaries. When we stop having those indicators, it is then that we run into problems.
I met the author at the launch of this book, he's a nice guy and he's released a good book. He spent about 8 years writing this book and it seems that it's somewhat autobiographical (*eek*). Check it out.