Sonya Hartnett

I made a strategic reading mistake.

Having finished the Led Zeppelin tome and followed it up with Stewart Copeland’s memoir – and thus feeling at least temporarily bloated with rock’n’roll excess – I thought a nice quiet piece of Australian fiction might be refreshing.

I chose Of a Boy, by Sonya Hartnett.

Mistake.

Thankfully, it’s a short book because I spent most of the time reading it in tears and by the end was sobbing helplessly. It’s beautifully written and utterly show more devastating.

It’s not that my actual childhood experiences were anything like poor Adrian’s – although a few incidents resonated very uncomfortably – it’s more that the book captured all too well my (largely baseless) childhood fears and anxieties, not all of which I’ve outgrown.

I’m tearing up again now just thinking about it.

So I’ve had to give myself the antidote of reading John Birmingham’s consolingly funny and disgusting “He Died with a Falafel in His Hand” to get back on an even keel.

Risky business, this reading caper. show less

Ok,, wow.. brilliant, a must read. Actually, a must-read aloud. I was so struck by the first line that I was glad my husband was handy so I could share it with him. He blinked, too. So, I read the next bit to him, to find out if this child is disturbed, or imaginative, or what the heck is going on. Are her hands pets? We read the next bit. We're both being very impressed & moved... so I wind up reading the whole thing aloud to him.

And reading it aloud with someone is the best way to show more appreciate it. On my own I would have read it too fast, probably thinking it much cuter than it is. It's not cute, actually. It's as dark as a nightmare, as intense as a temper tantrum. It's True.

Elizabeth Bird compares it to Where the Wild Things Are." I agree with her. Read her review to find out why - I can't write as well as she does. Max & Hannah are both wild and strong-willed, and they're still very much loved....

I just want to be sure to let you know the charcoal (?) illustrations are perfect. The idea of letting your hands have their own lives is probably a helpful coping strategy for lively children trying to develop impulse control. The fact that a reader can be 'on the side of' either sibling makes the story rich, and well-suited for discussions. I love the yoga poses that Sadie and Ratz do.

Oh gosh, I can't say anything well enough. Just know that I will look for more by the author, and would definitely recommend it to any family with strong-willed siblings." show less

Kitten Latch knows that he is special, that he has an unusual mission: to exterminate the evil that is his grandfather, and become the new Devil Latch himself. Kitten knows this because the twin devils have come to him and told him, have advised him of what the Natural Parents want from him. All of this stands to be derailed, though, when Kitten meets Amy, the new neighbor who has moved in next door, and the story takes a slightly more gothic-romance turn.

It's here where the book falls into show more a slight identity crisis: the gothic horror-romance drops hints at turning into a vampire story, but then drops that thread as if it never existed. This is frequently listed as "fantasy" or "supernatural," but I think it's a more straight-up story of mental instability--after all, when a crazy person says they're hearing demons, do we believe they have honest-to-goodness demons living in their skulls? The elements of horror, romance, and painful, bitter family histories muddle together, and while they mostly emerge unscathed, it's not entirely flawless.

I'm erring on the side of generosity in my rating, because I suspect I'd have liked this a lot more as a physical book rather than an audio recording. Unfortunately, the paper book was not available in either the library system I work in or live in, so I settled for the audio, against my better judgment. Hartnett's writing is a little too complex to not be on the page, and it's harder (for me) to keep track of details when I'm not seeing the words.

I was feeling pretty cranky about most of Hartnett's work not having been published in the US, but the more of it I'm tracking down, the more convinced I become that publishers have made the right choice. I do think I'll be re-reading Thursday's Child, though, to remind myself why I fell in love with her books in the first place. show less

Sonya Hartnett has authored many children's books that have a somewhat dark twist to them, so it's little surprise that her adult fiction tends the same way.

Golden Boys is about a group of young children knocking about a typical Australian working-class suburb. The Jensons, who have just moved into the area, are a contrast to their neighbours, being affluent and indulgent of their kids. The Jenson boys want for nothing, and their dad encourages them to share what they have with their new show more friends. Their dad, Rex, is solicitous and caring, helping to patch up a badly hurt kid, and counselling another.

The Kiley family are both attracted to and repelled by the Jensons. Playing at the Jensons' offers them a refuge from a home dominated by a drunken, abusive father, but there is still some unease about getting too close to their new neighbours. Two other boys, Garrick and Avery, see no such issues; their home lives are so miserable that they welcome the chance to experience the Jensons' indulgence.

It's not hard to see where Hartnett is going with this book, but she still manages to tell her story in a very affecting way, showing the various impacts on the children of the abuses that go on in their fractured families. The ending is uncompromising stuff, and the reader is left with a saddening sense of the unfairness of it all, with innocent children's lives being blighted by the actions of their parents. show less