Pain of the suburbs

Brendon Cowell can write. He wrote a number of episodes of the brilliant Love My Way. He has been a highlight of the Australian theatre, film and television scenes for a number of years. And he has recently released his first novel, How It Feels.

And it is beautiful.

Neil Cronk is a theatrical and creative young man, trapped in the suppressive suburbs of the Shire. His friendships, family and romantic relationships in his school years are rich and real, and his desperation to ditch all things suburban is almost tangible. In these relationships and this suburban peninsular he feels perpetually judged and trapped (I knew that feeling). He escapes to the freedom of studying theatre at university (I knew that too) and his ego thrives unchecked and rampant through his life of performance and debauchery (I may or may not have known that as well). He suffers and struggles through the whole process of identity and relating to others as the epidemic of young male suicide sweeps through the Australian suburban landscape.

This book is ultimately about friendship, and what it means to be a Man. As in, a grown up, functioning human  Man that can cope with shit and get shit done. Neil Cronk spends most of the book not knowing this.

There are passages of this book that gave me a phisiological response. His description of London, and all things that are "so very London" gave me a true physical nostalgia, a pain of memory. His anxieties about letting others in, about letting himself out, about dropping that all important macho ego wall of rebuff evoked the men I love so vividly. Neil Cronk is by no means a likable character, but he is so three dimensional in his construction. While reading this, I kept needing to remind myself that this is NOT a memior of Brendan Cowell, but the details of his life that I know of really do mirror that of Cronk.

The Australian literature landscape has been in desperate need of some weighty contenders, with youth, and vigour and gravitas. I hope Cowell writes lots lots more.