Richard's life is coming apart at the seams. A reluctant immigrant to Australia, he's failing abysmally to assimilate into his new country. His marriage is faltering, his five-year-old son is miserable and the news from his homeland is distressing. He must stay in work to gain citizenship, but his job in an undistinguished college is both precarious and soul-destroying, while his colleagues are busy backstabbing each other. Richard finds that he has become a stranger to himself. He starts to act bizarrely and when he reaches out for help, he makes matters much, much worse...A wry comedy about an outsider in one of Sydney's less attractive satellite towns"”this is suburbia, but it's a long way from Neighbours.
D. B. Deerhurst, who is married with one son, has lived in Zimbabwe (when it was Rhodesia) and Australia, but now lives near Bath, England, and has been lucky enough along the way to hold down 11 different jobs on the fringes of academic life.
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Chris Coggin (author of 'The Empire Sketcher', a novel based on the life of Thomas Baines)
The blurb describes it as a wry comedy. Well, it is, but it goes a lot deeper. Anyone who has settled in a new country will recognizes reflections of themselves in the behaviour of the anti-hero, Richard, who comes to grips with the quirks, anomalies and political vagaries of a migrant’s life as he sees them. In this case, the issues are bedevilled by the juggling act Richard must maintain between new romantic interests, the stresses of being a father of a child in another country, and the demands of running a professional program at an outback l university in Australia. Then, just as emotional balance seems achievable, he finds that underlying experiences back in the old country – Rhodesia – affect his conduct and motivations more than he would have thought possible. A book that propels the reader along with its wit, sharp observations of relationships, and of the Australian landscape of the ‘seventies.
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