The Tin Moon

by Stephen Lacey

Set against the backdrop of an urbanizing Australia in 1969, The Tin Moon is the brilliant, humorous story of a boy just trying to make sense of his parents, his teachers, and his new neighbors. While Neil Armstrong is landing on the moon and the Vietnam War is raging on television, Jimmy Smith is most concerned with wreaking havoc on the "city people" who are gentrifying his country village, the hippies living in a bus, and understanding how his parents can be so absurd. Filled with humor, nostalgia, and the search for meaning that lies at the heart of childhood, The Tin Moon is an extraordinary debut novel from a great new talent.

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Once Nanna took me on the train to Sydney. When we were getting near the city I could see down into people's backyards. They were all held apart by rusty corrugated iron. Nobody grew any vegetables. There wasn't room for anything at all except for a washing line and a dunny.

'Yards like pocket handkerchiefs,' Nanna said.
'We won't have to worry about going to the city, the city's coming to us'.
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Jimmy Smith runs like the wind, sings like an angel and wears a gas mask in his father's valiant. He knows the winner of every Melbourne Cup, eats Choo Choo Bars and tends to his ant farm.

Jimmy lives with his extended family in the country village of Point Henry. It's 1969. Neil Armstrong has just landed on the moon and Vietnam War is raging on television sets across the world. But Jimmy is concerned with matters closer to home... the 'city people' are coming, bringing their pole houses and cul-de-sacs with them.


The Tin Moon is much more than a rollercoaster ride of wickedness, love, parental stupidity and everything it means to be a boy. It's a search for meaning, and the sacred spaces of childhood amidst the shrinking fibro frontier.

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2003

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially found this an easy book to get into Some very funny stories through the eyes of a young boy. However I so disliked the father and became increasingly sickened with the many instances of abuse in the name of discipline of a child who was treated more like a piece of property. Without structure or a plot I started to skim through tale after tale of boyhood adventures that really had some horrific unintended outcomes. No lessons learned! Though many familiar items, phrases and words typical of the time raised some fond memories of my youth. Near the end felt the book was becoming a relentless babble and collection of random tales of silly misbehaving boys!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

About growing up in a town near Gosford from 1969-1970, this Australian novel of childhood has the language, cultural artefacts and primary schoolboys’ troublemaking down to a “t”. The family is an extended one and the only child of a father who works in the local quarry leads a mischief making but harsh working class existence with casual cruelty and tragedy contributing pathos. The style is unusual; more a stream of consciousness with abrupt breaks in the narrative, but it’s a great nostalgic read

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago, and enjoyed revisiting The Tin Moon. A stream of consciousness coming of age story, many of the hijinx Jimmy and his friends got up to evoked such a feeling of nostalgia, even though it's set in my mother's era, not my own. It's a heartfelt book - with many sections having me laughing out loud, but others making me flinch, and still others cry. Which is what growing up is all about, isn't it?

[Jeff Bilman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially I loved this book. It took me back to living in Australia in the late 60's (well in my case it was the 70's but it seemed fairly similar). There is a particular vocabulary distinct to Australia in that time. This is a well written and very funny book for adults - every passage in itself is great. The only problem I had, and one that affected my reading experience, was the lack of any real story to hang all these funny events off. I suppose you can say it's a character driven book instead of a plot driven book - but, for me, it made it hard to sustain my interest and it took a long time for me to finish as I could only read it in small doses. It was recommended to me by a friend as their favourite book - so each to their own.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book when I was ten or eleven some time in 2002 but only got through about ten pages. Then I found a copy in an op shop about a year ago and decided to give it another go. I think it is a far more interesting than it would first seem. You could describe the book as lacking some sort of structure but that is the point. Our memories aren't straightforward and the older we get the more delineated our childhood recollections become.

[Marie]

I couldn't get into this book and I gave up without finishing it.