The Rules of Backyard Cricket

Author(s): Jock Serong

Australian

"It starts in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game. Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. No surprise that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety:one of those men who's always got away with things and just keeps getting. Until the day we meet him, middle aged, in the boot of a car. Gagged, cable-tied, a bullet in his knee. Everything pointing towards a shallow grave. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a novel of suspense in the tradition of Peter Temple's Truth. With glorious writing harnessed to a gripping narrative, it observes celebrity, masculinity:humanity:with clear-eyed lyricism and exhilarating narrative drive."


Product Information

'I loved this book. Jock Serong is a natural. He engages you with a vivid recreation of boyhood in 1970s Australian suburbia, while letting the darkness seep in page by page until you find yourself in the grip of an intense thriller.' -- Malcolm Knox 'Serong's writing displays wit, insight and occasionally, splendour, particularly during its atmospheric, heart-in-mouth final chapter.' Books Publishing 'Three pages in, I was sure Jock Serong had written this book just for me. Thoughts I'd had since childhood. Then, a story of the love and hate within families, of the failures of masculinity, in a cricket context rendered with technical precision. Brutal, perceptive, uncomfortably funny, occasionally breaking into poetry.' -- Geoff Lemon 'What happens in the backyard doesn't stay in the backyard. Wally and Darren Keefe are the Australian cricket dream gone sour.' -- Gideon Haigh

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General Fields

  • : 9781925355215
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : 0.412
  • : January 2016
  • : 234mm X 153mm
  • : Australia
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Jock Serong
  • : Paperback
  • : 916
  • : en
  • : 823.92
  • : 304