As If!: Easyread Comfort Edition

by Barry Levy

We seek them out, our homies, our bros, under the bridge, by the river in the Ipswich dark, and then as if of one large mind, like a single huge brain cell, hungry and in search of things to do we go seeking through the suburbs looking to fill our bellies and have some good, honest to God fun. Scouring the neighbourhood for targets. Pumping life, the teenagers in this novel jump off the page. From the intelligent but physically abused Gray Morrow, to his heroic but temperamental older brother, Gordon, and his tragic relationship with the city-wise but sexually abused Dusty Jones, this is a world many of us fail to recognise as very much our own. Often dark and sometimes cold, bloody and brutal, it is also filled with pathos, love and humanity. Moving between the fringe town of Ipswich and affuent Brisbane, we also find people of the normal' Ruth Hannah, the shelter supervisor who offers comfort and support to the kids, but who has her own past to contend with, and the Juvenile Aid Bureau's Senior Detective Constable Watno Thornes who tries to befriend the kids but lives with a dark agenda in the back of his head...Levy's novel immerses us in this world. Once in, we see that the way out is no simple journey. This book is a good read for those sensible enough to buy it. It is racy, with a pace reminiscent of an early Henry Miller, getting you involved in its poetically drawn world, and then lulling you into a sense of complacency, when WHAM, it hits you that this is no ordinary novel, something to be evidenced in both the content and style of writing as much as the universal themes of love, loss and need that are so brilliantly portrayed through the energetically alive, complex and richly drawn characters. ---Dr Robert Schweitzer, Associate Professor in Psychology, Queensland University of Technology

440 pages, Paperback