SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2014 ALS GOLD MEDAL
For
a long time Western Sydney has been the political flash-point of the nation,
but it has been absent from Australian literature. Luke Carmans first book of
fiction changeS all that: a collection of monologues and stories which
tells it how it is on Australias cultural frontier. His young, self-conscious
but determined hero navigates his way through the complications of his divorced
family, and an often perilous social world, with its Fobs, Lebbbos, Greek, Serbs,
Grubby Boys and scumbag Aussies, friends and enemies. He loves Whitman and
Kerouac, Leonard Cohen and Henry Rollins, is awkward with girls, and has an
invisible friend called Tom. His neighbour Wessam tells him he should write a
book called How to Be Gay and now
he has. Carmans style is packed with thought and energy: it captures the
voices of the street, and conveys fear and anger, beauty and affection, with a restless
intensity.
"An Elegant Young Man is street poetry for contemporary Sydney, and it demonstrates what is most exciting and innovative in Australia's emerging writers." - Sydney Morning Herald review
