Garry Kinnane
Shadowed Days : fragments of a Melbourne boyhood
NON FICTION
/AUTOBIOGRAPHY
ISBN 978-0-9802983-6-9
Paperback. RRP $29.95
'Two nights later our whole life is changed. I am reading a
comic in bed, when from way down the hall I hear my mother yell,
‘Frank! Frank!’ There is something in her voice that I have
never heard before - not just panic, which is the first thing
that strikes me, but a deeper note of fear...'
GARRY KINNANE’S haunting evocation of his boyhood in
Melbourne in the 40s and 50s brings to life a struggling family.
Frank and Thelma and their two boys, Garry and Ray, are always
on the move - from Richmond to Mount Macedon, to North
Melbourne, among the homeless in ‘Larundel’, and finally to an
uneasy life in Valentine Street.
GARRY KINNANE is the author of George Johnston: A
Biography (winner of The Age Book of the Year 1986), and
Colin Colahan: A Portrait.
'In Shadowed Days, Gary Kinnane imaginatively transforms the
circumstances of his family's life - the sadness, hardship,
dislocation and confrontation with death - into a compelling
narrative… The book glows with humanity, with an understanding
and wisdom born of privation and endurance.'
-- Tom Petsinis, author of The French Mathematician
'This is a beautifully written evocation of a childhood during
the post-war years in Victoria. with his parents and younger
brother, Garry Kinnane eked out a shabby-genteel existence from
the rural backdrop of Mount Macedon to the backstreets of
Richmond and North Melbourne. Shadowed Days is a poignant
account of a young boy teetering on the edge of adolescence. It
marks the junior Kinnane's gradual and forceful realisation that
life id unfair, whether it pertains to his beloved father's
tuberculosis, corporal punishment at the hands of the Christian
Brothers or the poverty-stricken circumstances of his family.
'But the occasional spot of sunlight does brighten the shadowed
days of Kinnane's boyhood. There's still joy to be had despite
the family's straitened finances and the shame of being farmed
out to stay with better-off relatives before being allowed a
housing commission home of their own. In this age of helicopter
parents and cotton-wool wrapped children, it's refreshing to
read about kids running amok at the local creek, revelling in
the unfettered freedom to fish, kite and fashion wooden guns and
go-carts. 'Football, too, became a consolation for Kinnane and
proved to be more of a religion than the doctrines of his
Catholic education. 'Shadowed Days excels at pinning down a
certain time and place. There are lots of period details that
will resonate with readers who grew up in '50s and '50s
Melbourne, such as the horse-drawn, milk-delivery service.' --
Thuy On - The Age 21/2/09 |
