The Mary Smokes Boys

November 18, 2013
This compact novel from Australian author Holland (The Source of the Sound) shows restless, alienated youth in the 1980s stuck in their small, rural towns and yearning for better lives. Ten-year-old Grey North, from agrarian Mary Smokes, Queensland, loses his mother, Irene, when she dies giving birth to his sister, who is then named after her. Grey’s father, Bill, a heavy drinker and ne’er-do-well, is seldom at home, and Grey assumes the responsibility of raising Irene. In the meantime, his older best friend, Gordon “Ook” Eccleston, brings him into the local gang, known as the “wild boys.” Bill remarries, with the waitress Angela Teal, but Grey continues his guardianship of Irene, now a high-spirited 14-year-old, while he works as a gas station attendant. He feels trapped by the town’s bleak prospects, especially when his girlfriend, Vanessa Humphries, tells him she’s leaving to work in a law office in Brisbane. Irene is injured while trying to run away from home, and Grey, Bill, and Ook get progressively deeper into trouble trying to pay off her hospital bill. Holland has created an affecting, if downbeat, noirish yarn of life Down Under.

Starred review from June 1, 2014

It's 1985 in dusty Mary Smokes, Australia, and Grey North's mother has died in childbirth. With a drunkenly distant father and stern grandmother, Grey finds comfort only with little sister Irene as he gets involved with boxing and local roughs. Prejudice against Aborigines darkens the narrative. VERDICT This lucidly written, beautifully unsentimental work introduces a rising Australian author to America; highly recommended as a different kind of coming-of-age tale.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
This sparely written, compact novel from Australian author Holland captures both the fragility and the beauty of the rural small town of Mary Smokes, located in Brisbane Valley and home to Grey North. Grey misses the loving mother he lost when she died giving birth to his sister, Irene. His father is often drunk or off working, so he is responsible for his sister's care. Grey finds companionship with a gang known as the wild boys, especially the orphaned Gordon Ook Eccleston. But their small town offers few options, and most of the young people leave as soon as they are able. When Irene is badly injured, the family is left with huge medical bills, and an ill-conceived scheme by Grey's ne'er-do-well father brings even bigger problems. The strange scenes between brother and sister, the close friendship of the boys regarded as outsiders, and the looming Australian landscape all elicit Holland's prose at its most atmospheric. The final portion of the novel, when the plot finally kicks into high gear, is riveting. A fine piece of work from a writer with real potential.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)