BARRACUDA by Christos Tsiolkas (Harper Collins), 515 pages, $22.99 paper. Rating: NNNN
Christos Tsiolkas’s brilliant Barracuda will make you think about what Olympic athletes sacrifice to be faster, higher and stronger. It’s not as savagely satirical as his breakthrough novel, The Slap, but it offers a compelling look at contemporary Australian life.
Danny Kelly is a gifted swimmer who earns a scholarship to train at a posh Melbourne boys school, where he’s bullied because of his working-class background and his ethnicity – he’s part Greek, part Scots-Irish. Eventually he earns respect – and the eponymous nickname – for his swimming ability.
At home, things are equally complicated. His Greek-Australian mom, a hairdresser, caters to his every need, and his younger siblings look up to him, but his father, a long-haul truck driver, resents the fact that he’s getting so much attention.
Danny has a few friends, and his Hungarian emigré coach becomes a bit of a father substitute, but mostly he finds solace in the water.
Until something drastic happens.
The book’s complex structure interweaves the younger Danny’s progress as a competitive swimmer with his present-day life as an ex-con, and much of the tension in the absorbing first half comes from wondering what crime he committed.
But even after his transgression is revealed, there’s lots to explore about shame, family, ambition and class – this is one of the most convincing depictions of working-class life since D.H. Lawrence’s Sons And Lovers. The book’s final quarter, focusing on Danny’s relationships, becomes richly emotional as the man’s protective layers begin to crumble.
The many descriptions of swimming and competing are vivid, making you feel like you’re in the pool. Tsiolkas is less successful in evoking Danny’s adult inner life – particularly around his lover Clyde. But that could just be because Danny doesn’t quite know who he is. Eventually he begins to find out, and it makes this poignant novel even richer.
Tsiolkas reads October 30, 7:30 pm, Brigantine Room, and takes part in the Setting The Story round table, November 1, 7:30 pm, Studio Theatre. ifoa.org
