As If!

by Barry Levy

Pumping life, the teenagers in this novel jump off the page. From the intelligent but physically abused Gray Morrow, to his heroic but temperamental older brother, Gordon, and his tragic relationship with the city-wise but sexually abused Dusty Jones, this is a world many of us fail to recognise as very much our own.

252 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2008

About the author

2012, November - The Terrorist - (Interactive Press, Brisbane)
book:The Terrorist|9781922120076
With bombs and missiles going off in Israel and Gaza and other flashpoints in the Middle East, what happens when you drop an Arab Muslim student into a Western Jewish home: a search for meaning, values, identity, truth - and a lot of suspicion. In fact a house turned upside down. This is the story of The Terrorist - until its soul-shaking end.

2013, June - Sawdust - (Glass House Books)
With its honest description of the complexities between abuser and abused (father and daughter), Sawdust is a frank, serious and even light and funny at times account of someone's life of abuse, and one you will feel inspired by because of its message of hope, and even forgiveness. There are life lessons in it for all of us.

2011 – Shades of Exodus – (Interactive Press, Brisbane)
book:Shades Of Exodus|11308962
A soul-searching portrait that encapsulates universal dilemmas common to all migrants: identity, loss, the search for meaning, and revolves around the true story of a South African family who were the victims of a vicious and violent crime in Australia while trying to flee the violence of South Africa.

2010 - chapter The Souls From Nowhereland published in compilation, Shall I Stay or Shall I Go? Tim Richman, editor (Two Dogs Books, Cape Town).

May 2008 – As If! – (Interactive Press, Brisbane)
book:As If!|6363547

A novel that immerses us in the world of youth homelessness in Australia. Often dark and sometimes cold, bloody and brutal, it is also filled with pathos, love and humanity. Once submerged in that world, we see there is no easy way out.


August 2004 – Burning Bright (Kwela Books, Cape Town)
Also published in Italy (Del Vecchio Editore)
book:Burning Bright|1132505

A coming of age novel set against South Africa’s apartheid years of the mid seventies, explores manipulation and control, love and hate, as some of the underlying issues of child sex abuse.

2000 - short story The Promised Land published in compilation under title of principal author and Nobel Prize laureate Nadine Gordimer’s short story At the Rendezvous of Victory (Kwela Books, Cape Town).

1989 - novella Farewell, Mrs Eels (The Open School), in collection of poetry and prose - Scenes From Another Day — New South African Writing.

1986 - The Glazer Kidnapping (Hans Strydom Publishers, JHB)
Autobiographical story of Kenny Levy, one of three Levy brothers involved in what was at the time (1967) the world’s biggest kidnapping. Kenny Levy was sentenced to six years in prison for his part in the kidnapping but maintained his innocence of any misdemeanour other than accepting around $2000 (times by at least 10 for today’s values) for the unknowing favour of giving two scoundrels — one of them his older brother, Effie (sentenced to 15 years) — a lift to the scene of the crime. The other kidnapper, Stanley Jawitz, committed suicide while running from police.


Worked in South Africa in the print media (from 1974) until left the country for Australia in June 1984.

Papers worked on in South Africa included: Sunday Express, Sunday Times, Rand Daily Mail. In the two years prior to coming to Australia was managing editor of Drum, a full colour magazine with a mainly black readership of around one and a half million. (The magazine was the subject of a popular international film called Drum.)

Since coming to Australia, worked for a short while on the Daily Sun as a sub, but gave up journalism to study towards a teaching degree.

After graduating, taught high school for a short while, and then went back into journalism, mainly regional journalism with The Queensland Times.

1996 - present: Writer plus part-time publications officer/editor, Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre.

Winner Australian Human Rights Award for Journalism — for a multiple series of stories on child sex abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence.

Reviews

[Olwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s hard to say what disturbed or enlightened me the most with this story. So disturbing I had nightmares for the first couple of nights after starting to read the book. Hard to see how anyone could survive psychologically, growing up in such a violent environment so lacking in home nurturing. I know it’s a fictional story, but I also know that it’s reality for many adolescents. But enlightening too, as the book helped me understand why people, and young adults in particular, find it so difficult to break out of the generational pattern of poverty or violence.

This is an essential read for anyone who dismisses adolescent homelessness with the term “why don’t they just……”