Homebush Boy

Description

As a schoolboy in suburban Sydney in 1952, Tom Keneally was a romantic. He had visions of following in his hero Chatterton's poetic footsteps. He dreamt of triumphing on the running track or rugby field. He had hopes of winning the heart of the beautiful but aloof Bernadette Curran. The one role he did not foresee himself playing was priest, until the momentous day when Bernadette announced her intention of becoming a nun. In this memoir, Keneally conjures up his youthful self and those who influenced his life. It provides an insight into the future novelist, and an evocation of adolescence that is as funny as it is poignant.

Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty novels since. They include Schindler's Ark, which won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith, Confederates and Gossip From The Forest, each of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent novels are The Daughters Of Mars, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2013, and Shame and the Captives. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including his memoir Homebush Boy, Searching for Schindler and Australians. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.

Magical * Independent on Sunday * Keneally is particularly good on the parental relationships . . . his disarming lightness of touch reveals self-analysis of a high order * The Times * Fascinating * Time Out * A delightful book * Daily Express * A wonderful memoir [which] evokes Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . . . Buy it and feel, for once, better * Literary Review * A wonderful little classic . . . The Catcher In The Rye meets the language of Dylan Thomas * The Sunday Times *