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Disco Boy
No DJ can mix 'Celebration' into 'Come On Eileen' quite like Paul Johnson, the king of rancid retro. But while he has the musical jumper cables to get even the most dismal party started, he can't get his own life moving. Trapped in a job he despises, a perpetual failure with the ladies and living at home with his distinctly unhelpful parents, Paul's stuck in limbo while everyone around him is limbo-dancing. As Paul learns, sometimes it is easier to joke about failure than to actually write that hit song or lean forward and kiss that girl who has been your best friend's girlfriend all these years. A romantic comedy that's equal parts bitingly cynical and na‹vely idealistic, this is a story for anyone who's ever hit the Pause button on their life, and found it hard to press Play again.
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Dominic Knight
19 books12 followersDominic Knight was one of the founders of The Chaser satirical newspaper in 1999, and also one of its destroyers in 2004 after the group finally acknowledged that it would never turn a profit. Since then he’s worked on the team’s various projects in print, stage, radio, television and online. Most recently he wrote for ABC-TV’sThe Hamster Wheel, Yes We Canberra! and The Chaser’s War On Everything.
In recent years, Dominic has begun writing fiction in an attempt to spend less time with his Chaser compatriots. His first novel Disco Boy (2009) portrayed the career travails of a disaffected law graduate suspiciously like himself, and its successor Comrades (2010) delved into the grubby world of student politics. He’s working on a third novel, which may appear in 2013 in the unlikely event that he gets his act together. Dominic regularly appears at various writers’ festivals whether he’s invited to speak or not, and is currently on the board of the National Young Writers’ Festival.
In 2012, Dominic began hosting Evenings on ABC Local Radio in NSW and the ACT. He can be heard from 7-10pm Monday to Friday on 702 ABC Sydney, 666 ABC Canberra, 1233 ABC Newcastle and ABC stations across NSW.
Dominic has lived in Sydney nearly all of his life and plays the bass reasonably well and tennis appallingly. He is overly fond of karaoke.
In recent years, Dominic has begun writing fiction in an attempt to spend less time with his Chaser compatriots. His first novel Disco Boy (2009) portrayed the career travails of a disaffected law graduate suspiciously like himself, and its successor Comrades (2010) delved into the grubby world of student politics. He’s working on a third novel, which may appear in 2013 in the unlikely event that he gets his act together. Dominic regularly appears at various writers’ festivals whether he’s invited to speak or not, and is currently on the board of the National Young Writers’ Festival.
In 2012, Dominic began hosting Evenings on ABC Local Radio in NSW and the ACT. He can be heard from 7-10pm Monday to Friday on 702 ABC Sydney, 666 ABC Canberra, 1233 ABC Newcastle and ABC stations across NSW.
Dominic has lived in Sydney nearly all of his life and plays the bass reasonably well and tennis appallingly. He is overly fond of karaoke.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 20, 2010
Paul is pretty much every guy I knew at uni. He’s very much the beta hero, and I loved him! He doesn’t have the smooth lines to pick up chicks -- and he knows it -- but he gets by with witty banter and, when it comes down to it, general good-guyness. The central romantic question -— that is, which girl should he go for? -- reflects Paul’s broader problem about what he wants out of life. I really liked how Knight deals with this. The women aren’t perfect but they’re not horrible, and Paul treats them well. He has a conscience and he listens to it.
What interested me most about this book was reading about Paul’s insecurities and his befuddlement when it comes to interpreting signals from the women. Don’t worry: it’s all done very intelligently. Paul is insecure in the way that any average person has insecurities. Nothing feels exaggerated or done for cheap laughs.
Another thing I love about this book is the way it portrays the three main female characters. Emily, Felicity and Zoë are all independent, sexually confident women who know their own worth. The women who are upfront about what they feel and think are viewed positively; those who give out mixed signals, though still desirable, aren’t glorified. Again, it’s all done with a lot of humour and more gentleness and subtlety than I was expecting. It was lovely. Knight also reveals a good working knowledge of, um, how shall I say this, girlie interests.
I’d love it if I could find more books like Disco Boy on the shelves. It’s so refreshing to read something that reflects my experiences and those of my friends’.
You can read my full review at Book Thingo.
What interested me most about this book was reading about Paul’s insecurities and his befuddlement when it comes to interpreting signals from the women. Don’t worry: it’s all done very intelligently. Paul is insecure in the way that any average person has insecurities. Nothing feels exaggerated or done for cheap laughs.
Another thing I love about this book is the way it portrays the three main female characters. Emily, Felicity and Zoë are all independent, sexually confident women who know their own worth. The women who are upfront about what they feel and think are viewed positively; those who give out mixed signals, though still desirable, aren’t glorified. Again, it’s all done with a lot of humour and more gentleness and subtlety than I was expecting. It was lovely. Knight also reveals a good working knowledge of, um, how shall I say this, girlie interests.
I’d love it if I could find more books like Disco Boy on the shelves. It’s so refreshing to read something that reflects my experiences and those of my friends’.
You can read my full review at Book Thingo.
April 30, 2012
(I would probably give this more of a two-and-a-half stars.) It's not often that I read dick-lit. To be quite honest, I often find the self-effacing, bumbling man-boy protagonists to be quite irritating. I think they might be something that translates better on screen because at least then you don't have to be trapped in their minds for three hundred pages. This is nonetheless an affable little book with some rather amusing moments, as one would expect from a Chaser boy. The characters are pretty standard but fairly likeable. For me, the book improved once Paul leaves the mobile disco, not in the least because the frequency of his song-related humour got dialled down, which made those jokes less tacky and more, well, actually funny. At the end of the day, this is a fun bit of fluff.
July 19, 2017
I'm tossing up between 1 and 2 stars.
I felt the same resistance to reading this book as I sometimes feel reading a particularly painful textbook. Not because the content resembles a text book, but rather because it was just NOT enjoyable and yet I continued to force myself to read it.
It's not terrible, and I've given the book 2 stars because I reserve 1 for downright awful books (this is not as bad as twilight, either in content or writing style).
Paul likes to paint himself as a moral 'nice guy' but really, he's just one of the least unpleasant people in a cast of unpleasant characters who are full of their own self-importance and find themselves funny.
I mean, really, Paul is a twenty-something millenial whose biggest problem is the fact that he has no real direction. Everything is handed to him on a silver platter - his living arrangements, both of his jobs, his girl 'options.' He's cool enough to be a DJ but smart and successful enough to be a lawyer. His friends are all smart lawyers who drink all the time. He lives in Sydney, with his parents BUT in his very own space (of course.) He has multiple girls keen on him. This is clearly what Dominic Knight wishes his life was like, and is oblivious to the fact that Paul is an inherently an unlikable and irritating character, not a perennially nice guy.
Then there's the treatment of the women. Not the worst, but all three main characters are very one-dimensional. The best I can say for Knight is that all three women at least have the appearance of agency, and Zoe is cast as the only sensible (if particularly snarky) character in the whole of Paul's life.
Painful to read, would not recommend.
I felt the same resistance to reading this book as I sometimes feel reading a particularly painful textbook. Not because the content resembles a text book, but rather because it was just NOT enjoyable and yet I continued to force myself to read it.
It's not terrible, and I've given the book 2 stars because I reserve 1 for downright awful books (this is not as bad as twilight, either in content or writing style).
Paul likes to paint himself as a moral 'nice guy' but really, he's just one of the least unpleasant people in a cast of unpleasant characters who are full of their own self-importance and find themselves funny.
I mean, really, Paul is a twenty-something millenial whose biggest problem is the fact that he has no real direction. Everything is handed to him on a silver platter - his living arrangements, both of his jobs, his girl 'options.' He's cool enough to be a DJ but smart and successful enough to be a lawyer. His friends are all smart lawyers who drink all the time. He lives in Sydney, with his parents BUT in his very own space (of course.) He has multiple girls keen on him. This is clearly what Dominic Knight wishes his life was like, and is oblivious to the fact that Paul is an inherently an unlikable and irritating character, not a perennially nice guy.
Then there's the treatment of the women. Not the worst, but all three main characters are very one-dimensional. The best I can say for Knight is that all three women at least have the appearance of agency, and Zoe is cast as the only sensible (if particularly snarky) character in the whole of Paul's life.
Painful to read, would not recommend.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 3, 2019
Thinly veiled memoir or a true flight of fancy, Dom? I do wonder how much of this was drawn on Dom's life experiences - there are too many fine details about Sydney that must be personal - but it did feel a little "too good to be true" in places. Loser DJ who's suddenly fending off women left, right and centre with his irresistible wittiness? Commiserations! I did enjoy the wry descriptions of Sydney and its locals though.
July 17, 2021
Good fun book. Nice sense of place and a wry voice. A really nice look at coming of age in Australia in the burned out early 21t century.
October 9, 2011
I love The Chaser (if you’re not Australian, you might be more familiar with them as ‘the guys that crashed APEC doing a motorcade dressed as Osama Bin Laden’). And so, I love Dominic Knight, one of the Chaser boys more likely to be found writing or behind the camera these days (he also writes some very funny tweets – worth following). However, it did take me some time to get round to reading his first piece of fiction, Disco Boy, which comes complete with quote from fellow Chaser, Chas Licciardello (that’s the guy who played Osama in the above stunt). In case you can’t see it on the cover, Chas writes, ‘If Nick Hornby and the Buddha wrote a book together, it’d be much better than this one’. Funny, but with a grain of truth because Knight’s writing reminds me of an Australian Hornsby.
Disco Boy is unashamedly Australian (nothing wrong with that, except the novel is set in Sydney – blergh). It makes the most of picturesque settings such as Sydney Harbour, ferries as a form of transport and the great weather. Sydney/Melbourne arguments aside, this book delightfully captures the musings of Paul, who has a degree in law but is trying to refuse the conveyor belt to hell of CBD law firms and the working day that never stops. So, he’s living with his parents, doing DJ gigs to make some money while he works on his music and lazes about. Unfortunately for Paul, his DJ savvy turns to nothing after a poor choice of song on a harbour cruise and he quits. He is then enticed back to his law firm (short term, part time –really!) where he lusts after lawyer Felicity, while fighting off the younger Emily then pouring it all out to friend Zoe. Surely every man would like three lovely ladies in his life?
In between hilariously satirical mishaps (and I do mean hilarious – Knight has a talent for this), Disco Boy counts down great party songs from 40 to 1 culminating in a somewhat predictable ending, but pleasing all the same. I finished this book with a smile on my face – it’s light and entertaining Aussie fiction, something we don’t have enough of. It also pokes fun at the need to be one better all the time – we all should just cut it out and stop pretending like Paul.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
Disco Boy is unashamedly Australian (nothing wrong with that, except the novel is set in Sydney – blergh). It makes the most of picturesque settings such as Sydney Harbour, ferries as a form of transport and the great weather. Sydney/Melbourne arguments aside, this book delightfully captures the musings of Paul, who has a degree in law but is trying to refuse the conveyor belt to hell of CBD law firms and the working day that never stops. So, he’s living with his parents, doing DJ gigs to make some money while he works on his music and lazes about. Unfortunately for Paul, his DJ savvy turns to nothing after a poor choice of song on a harbour cruise and he quits. He is then enticed back to his law firm (short term, part time –really!) where he lusts after lawyer Felicity, while fighting off the younger Emily then pouring it all out to friend Zoe. Surely every man would like three lovely ladies in his life?
In between hilariously satirical mishaps (and I do mean hilarious – Knight has a talent for this), Disco Boy counts down great party songs from 40 to 1 culminating in a somewhat predictable ending, but pleasing all the same. I finished this book with a smile on my face – it’s light and entertaining Aussie fiction, something we don’t have enough of. It also pokes fun at the need to be one better all the time – we all should just cut it out and stop pretending like Paul.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
May 28, 2009
This book started life as a writing project for a university course, and should really have ended it there. I can, with all honesty, say that it's one of the worst I've ever read.
For those who don't know, Dominic Knight is one of the Chaser team. The Chaser are a satirical group who still have the word "boys" added to any description of them, despite the fact that marriage and children have intervened in their youthful years of jubilation.
It's fitting, this perma-boy attitude, as it peppers the work. The reader is presented with a scarcely believable tale about a guy who can't decide what to do with his life - or, more importantly, who to shag. The 40 chapters - he's a DJ, it's a countdown, geddit? - contain the sort of observational comedy that would be interesting if it wasn't so laboured. It's chock-full of pretentious musical reference - though sadly not at a level that would earn a Pitchfork thumbs-up - and there's really a lack of narrative development. Most figures are cardboard cut-outs, particularly the women of the book, who seem to either provide some kind of deus ex machina role, or exist to be ogled and lusted after. Elsewhere, the about-face his parents make at the book's conclusion really goes against the role they've played for its entire duration.
To be fair, Knight's book does warn that it could be a thinly-veiled whinge about his life. If only it were that. The text seems to be a poorly-woven collection of namedroppings and excoriations of parts of Sydney's culture (the law, the University of Sydney and the North Shore, generally) which appear to be fuelled by a strange mixture of self-loathing and a desire to be known for trenchant insight.
The combination of weak story and weak humour beg a basic question: where were the editors on this project? It smacks of a novel that's been pushed out the door in the hope that the author's Chaser appeal would shift units. It's the sort of thing that, in the hands of any other writer, would have been flogged into shape with a couple more revisions.
Even if you're a lover of the male equivalent of chick-lit, you deserve much better than this dross. Appalling.
For those who don't know, Dominic Knight is one of the Chaser team. The Chaser are a satirical group who still have the word "boys" added to any description of them, despite the fact that marriage and children have intervened in their youthful years of jubilation.
It's fitting, this perma-boy attitude, as it peppers the work. The reader is presented with a scarcely believable tale about a guy who can't decide what to do with his life - or, more importantly, who to shag. The 40 chapters - he's a DJ, it's a countdown, geddit? - contain the sort of observational comedy that would be interesting if it wasn't so laboured. It's chock-full of pretentious musical reference - though sadly not at a level that would earn a Pitchfork thumbs-up - and there's really a lack of narrative development. Most figures are cardboard cut-outs, particularly the women of the book, who seem to either provide some kind of deus ex machina role, or exist to be ogled and lusted after. Elsewhere, the about-face his parents make at the book's conclusion really goes against the role they've played for its entire duration.
To be fair, Knight's book does warn that it could be a thinly-veiled whinge about his life. If only it were that. The text seems to be a poorly-woven collection of namedroppings and excoriations of parts of Sydney's culture (the law, the University of Sydney and the North Shore, generally) which appear to be fuelled by a strange mixture of self-loathing and a desire to be known for trenchant insight.
The combination of weak story and weak humour beg a basic question: where were the editors on this project? It smacks of a novel that's been pushed out the door in the hope that the author's Chaser appeal would shift units. It's the sort of thing that, in the hands of any other writer, would have been flogged into shape with a couple more revisions.
Even if you're a lover of the male equivalent of chick-lit, you deserve much better than this dross. Appalling.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. I read it on holiday, while I was away from Australia, and it made me feel I was still at home! Lovely to find a book where the internal workings of a man's mind are expressed with the emotional sensitivity that is so often lacking in what is generally considered to be 'masculine' fiction. Here we find a male protagonist who is humble and respectful of women and on the search for love (rather than mere conquest), as well as a viable career-path.
It was also fun to read a book that is set in my milieu, in my town, with characters who are incredibly familiar and sympathetic, who frequent the same bars I do!
There are too few male writers doing this kind of thing, and the ones who do it particularly well - Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby are two that come to mind - have thus far tended to stem from the UK. Nick Earls is the only other male Australian writer I can think of who writes in this genre.
Dominic Knight is a welcome addition to our literary landscape.
It was also fun to read a book that is set in my milieu, in my town, with characters who are incredibly familiar and sympathetic, who frequent the same bars I do!
There are too few male writers doing this kind of thing, and the ones who do it particularly well - Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby are two that come to mind - have thus far tended to stem from the UK. Nick Earls is the only other male Australian writer I can think of who writes in this genre.
Dominic Knight is a welcome addition to our literary landscape.
January 24, 2010
I believe the equivelent of chick lit is called d**k lit, which describes this novel well.
An enjoyable, light read, and as an 80's music fan I enjoyed the countdown and music references.
The story is very entrenched in the particulars of the North Sydney enclave so if you don't know where that is (and what it means) I don't know if the book would translate all that well.
Not to be taken seriously - much like the Chasers War on Everything
An enjoyable, light read, and as an 80's music fan I enjoyed the countdown and music references.
The story is very entrenched in the particulars of the North Sydney enclave so if you don't know where that is (and what it means) I don't know if the book would translate all that well.
Not to be taken seriously - much like the Chasers War on Everything
July 27, 2010
Not a lot to this really. Boys-meets-girl-leaves-girl-meets-girls-meets-first-girl. And they all lived happily ever after. What drew me most to the book was that it was written by one of the stars and writers of Australia most important satirical TV shows of the last 10 years The Chaser. But there was just two laughs in the whole book and they weren't that memorable. Also the constant play on song lyrics and titles soon lost its appeal.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2011
This was a light and entertaining book that was funny and had some great lines. It is set in Sydney and was great to read that the main character Paul popped down to the Oaks for a beer or two. Paul feels trapped in his job as a DJ but is undecided about his future, he still lives at home and most of his friends are lawyers. The book follows his life as he tries to figure out his career and find a girlfriend and sort out all his problems.
February 13, 2013
I enjoyed this book, but think it will really only work best for people currently aged between 30 and 40 - as the name suggests, music plays a large part in the story. Each chapter is named after a song the narrator uses in his DJ sets, and they, along with a number of news references, will make it difficult for this book to age well.
It was a fun read, and I have a soft spot for anything the Chaser boys do. :)
It was a fun read, and I have a soft spot for anything the Chaser boys do. :)
October 15, 2014
I love this book. Sometimes I read and realise I do not need to stress so much about my future. Other times I read it and think I need to work harder so that other people don't chose my life for me. I know so many people men and women, just like Paul.
April 18, 2011
Loved the author's style. This is a good portrayal of how young men in Australia behave... like lovable idiots :). Would definitely read more by this author.
August 2, 2012
Read very much like a Young Adults book, tbh. Some chuckles to be had. Two and a half stars, really. Why doesn't this app allow for half points?!
January 16, 2013
Yea, no. Largely terrible.
April 29, 2013
Hilarious. An easy read.
May 5, 2013
Easy to read, amusing in places, an enjoyable light read about one guy trying to make some decisions in his life about girls and work. Good way to relax on a weekend
June 4, 2010
Quite fun, lots of cheesy references to 80s hits.
February 22, 2011
I would've liked it much better if the main character wasn't such a tool.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews