A
NEW Sonya Hartnett novel is a major literary event these days, and probably has
been for a long time. When I read her books I am looking for a clever use of
figurative language, and an opportunity to revisit some of those those dark, dark themes. GOLDEN BOYS is classic Hartnett, the Sonya Hartnett
of SLEEPING DOGS ilk, the kind of writing and ideas that make me want to write
to her, or visit her, and talk about these fascinating events and people that
occur in her novels.
We
have, once again, the mysterious suburbs, where dislocated families struggle to
survive. I get the feeling S E Hinton is an early influence, but Hinton’s
stories are sugar coated in comparison. Hartnett’s suburbs are more like the
Maycomb County of To Kill a Mockingbird- nothing’s quite right, there is a
subterranean unease that frightens and at the same time captivates its
inhabitants.
In
GOLDEN BOYS we have once again the troubled adults that inflict the consequence
of their flawed personalities onto their siblings. Mr Jenson (Rex) provides his
two young boys with lavish gifts- car racing games, swimming pool, fancy bikes-
not out of a sense of indulged love for his kids, but rather as a magnet for
their young male friends who he hopes will come to visit. There are some
chilling episodes in the novel where he seems as keen as mustard to dry the wet
boys off with a towel. He casts himself in some sort of heroic light- the
wealthy dentist who would like to be the man who ‘could ease suffering when
suffering was a person’s whole world’, and ironically is the instigator himself
of a lot of suffering. He is first described as looking like ‘an action-movie
actor.’ Rex is a fascinating character and he is at the heart of the novel. Hartnett
is careful not to make a cardboard cut-out villain- with a subject like
paedophilia, she easily could have. The unhappiness he provides Colt with is
understated for a long time. He is all charm on the surface and
even defends himself confidently from Joe Kiley’s loose charges. An innocent
outsider could see Rex as an earnest family man. Any suspect actions on his behalf
are subtle, and understated- like his fascination with Avery’s knee- and the
novel is better for it. Mrs Jenson (Tabby) is as close to a non-entity as you
might find, cosy, benign, as passive as her name suggests. Her lack of action
or responsibility is criminal. The eldest boy has to take the total weight of
his father’s dark secret. She does provide the reader with the scaringly
ambiguous title of her husband as ‘the pied-piper.’
The
other adults are the Kiley’s. Joe is a real problem. The sort of father that,
when he comes home from his unfulfilled job as a printer, the whole house
stiffens to see what sort of mood he will be in, specifically whether or not he
will be drunk, and invariably violent. There is something powerful and complex
about both fathers. At times they seem benign and friendly, but there is that
menace underneath that calm veneer that threatens the lives of their whole
families. Of the two, we might feel a little sorry for Joe. Away from alcohol
and in better personal circumstances, he may be an ok father. We get a glimpse
of this with his enthralling family stunt where he lights the petrol he stores
in his mouth and roars like a dragon with real fire. Mrs Kiley –Elizabeth- is
better than Tabby- she is a lot more earnest at protecting her own or other
people’s children. When Joe’s physical menace is at its peak near the end of
the novel, and he is about to use his fist (described as a ‘solid mallet’) on
his daughter’s face, Elizabeth comes to life and says ‘Don’t you dare hit her!’,
admirably pulling him back ‘with irresistible force.’ She also looks out for
poor Declan who is not his father’s favourite. Elizabeth is so unhappy that she
even advises her growing daughter not to get married, and more importantly,
never to have children. I knew someone just like Joe, growing up, a father of
close friends who lived across the road. For me, there was this ongoing
palpable menace in the house, but I only felt it as a visitor- I didn’t have to
live with it.
That
leaves the children, and as in the case of many of Hartnett’s novels, they are
interesting, and varied, and all have fascinating little personalities of their
own. The Jenson boys are Colt (as in Coltrane) and Bastian. Colt is the closest
thing to heroic status in the novel. He helps rescue Freya when she is at the
mercy of her father. He takes the brunt of the blame for his father’s
grubbiness in an awful, brutal encounter near the end of the story. He knows
too much. He is smart, and that makes life depressingly difficult. His father
constantly gives him the creeps. He makes a heartbreaking apology to Declan on
behalf of his father, something a boy should never have to do. Colt was a very
good runner, but thanks to his father he has abandoned the idea of an athletics
club. He doesn’t want to be bringing male friends home with him anymore. The first
words of the novel, from Colt’s point of view, are ‘With their father, there was
always a catch…’ Hartnett could be
describing a worm or a little fish on the end of a line used as bait. Bastian is
younger and his life is easier. He acts young for his age, and mercifully, he
seems blissfully unaware of the significance of all these purchased gifts in
his life- a situation that of course will sadly not last forever.
The
Kiley’s are greater in number. Freya is the eldest of any of the children. She is
13, and on the verge of young adulthood and at the same age as Jem in ‘Mockingbird’,
also on the verge of truth and knowledge- she has ‘started to see things she
hasn’t seen before.’ She looks up to the Jenson’s- Colt, and Rex in particular.
She hasn’t seen beyond the shiny exterior, and let’s face it, anything seems
preferable to her own raging father. By the end of the book the cruel and
intense atmosphere of her household becomes too much, and she enforces a deeply
dangerous encounter with her drunken father, only to try and get Rex (her
saviour) involved when she cannot handle it. Poor Freya feels the menace of her
household keenly, in referring to the existence of a ‘yellow-eyed monster.’ She
invents the idea that home is like a castle. She hates the lack of money in the
home. And she has a morbid fear that her mother is going to have yet another
baby. Freya has to confide in someone, and her inherent misplaced trust in Rex
makes the reader fear the onset of tragic circumstances.
Freya’s
younger brother Declan is the main protector of his younger brother, Syd. For some
reason he seems to be the number one target of his father’s bullying, yet he
copes in life by not questioning too much, but rather accepting that things aren’t
always easy, or that life has its unfortunately messy complications. When it
comes to the crunch- when Joe is trying to force the truth from Rex in their
own living room- Declan is interestingly loyal to Rex, and not his own father. The
overriding impression of ‘Deco’ is his steadfast demand that his younger
brother, Syd, is not to go to the Jenson’s for a swim alone. It is Declan that
puts the wind up Mrs Kiley. Syd (Sydney) is an easy target for Rex because he
is younger, and unsuspecting. He has all the simple childishness of feeling
free and grateful for a swim in a pool, and dreams of one day owning his own
skateboard. He is also terrified of his father. The other children- Marigold,
Dorrie and Peter, have less of a function in the novel. They too are subject to
the witnessing of their father’s moods- ‘they stand around their mother like
children in a very old painting- impassive but on guard.’
Outside
these family members, Hartnett introduces us to two other ‘golden boys’, two
very different boys in Avery and Garrick, and two people that add an enormous
amount of interest to the novel. Avery Price is a sad creature, almost an
orphan who lives with his grandparents and is always roaming around on his
bike, even on his own, at night. He has no choice but to align himself with
Garrick, the frightening bully, and seems to be the one most vulnerable to Rex
Jenson, who develops an obsession with Avery’s busted knee.
Garrick
is frightening, but the reader can’t help but share his despair at being the
one who is targeted the most by Rex’s wandering hands. His indignation, shock
and anger at having his ‘arse’ touched is chillingly real, as is his incredibly
violent physical assault on Colt. Garrick steals Colt’s prized BMX just because
he knows Colt will come looking for it. He feels incredibly let down by Colt’s
silences- ‘But you knew. You knew,
and you didn’t tell us. You let him.’ Garrick’s attack is shockingly bloody
because it is the only way Garrick knows how to retaliate- and Hartnett has
also built in a homoerotic element into the story as well. Garrick bashes
Colt because he loves him.
For
those fans of Hartnett who find her treatment of the suburbs fascinating (see
also Georgia Blain), GOLDEN BOYS is rich material. The stormwater drain, the
enticing backyard swimming pool, the enticing ice creams, the ‘playroom’ filled
with innumerable children’s toys, the electric tension in the Kiley household
when Joe comes home-‘ They hear the shoving of his chair, his tread across the
kitchen’, the creepily ambiguous words Rex uses to the spellbound Freya, who is
described brilliantly as ‘she has pulled on a weed and the whole world has come
up in her hand’, the chilling fatherly tone Rex uses on Avery when he advises
him not to go near the stormwater drain with his bad knee, Rex’s greasy,
lizard-like behaviour at the neighbourhood BBQ he organises, ‘at its base runs
a thin greenish thread of never-drying slime’ (that’s a description of the
stormwater drain, not Rex), the brilliant passage where Freya and Rex are
talking, and almost simultaneously on the page the boys are having a slot car
race (of course these twin narratives are intertwined), the tense encounter
between Rex and Joe at the Kiley’s home when the truth is almost exposed (which
strangely enough reminds me of the clash between Gatsby and Tom Buchanan at the
Plaza Hotel).
