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Schoolboy narrator Daniel Jordan, growing up in working-class Sydney during the Second World War, is confused by a world in which the religious dogma of his school conflicts with the communism of his family’s terrifying neighbour, the ‘Comrade’. Refreshingly unsentimental, this is the funny, ultimately tragic story of a boy struggling to understand a world in which concepts like innocence and guilt, good and evil are clearly open to interpretation.
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Reviews
Reflects on indoctrination and the holy innocence of its victims, while suffusing everyday life with a spirituality of its own
If you are inclined to avoid anything written by winners of the Booker Prize, make an exception for Thomas Keneally
Reading Keneally's prose is like walking on the sort of turf that puts a spring in your step
A subtle examination of innocence and guilt