The coastal town is not named, nor is 'the boy' about whom, and by whom, this story of 1950s and 1960s rural Australia is written.
Much of the narrative revolves around fishing waters fresh and salt in Victoria's Western District. More than that, it is a journey from birth to hormones-haywire
mid-teens of a lad blessed with good health and sporting ability, his interactions with Irish and Scottish born immigrant parents, and observing the attitudes and
characters in a conservative provincial community of that era.
Contemplated above all perhaps, is the boy's ambivalence towards a British ex-serviceman father so contrasting in persona and profession to the dinkum blue-collar Anzac
dads of his schoolmates, and finding his way to finally, and fully, appreciate this admirable man.
Autorentext
An inveterate traveller, Jim Ewing has worked on and under oceans as a merchant seaman, fisherman and diver. A few too many other vocations include professional sportsman (Australian Rules football and boxing), journalist, psychiatric nurse, stockman, oil-rig worker, bulldozer operator, overseer (Papua New Guinea), actor, playwright, farmer... He has had several plays produced for stage and radio, his short stories have appeared in diverse publications, and he has three published novels to his name. When not on the wallaby in some far corner of Planet Earth, he lives in south-west Victoria.