Finding the Voice

Pat Flynn’s Alex Jackson: Grommet gets off to a confused start: no less than fifteen named characters in five pages, and a narrator determined to cram in as much background information as possible. Eventually the story starts to sort itself out. When it does, as the title itself indicates, we are in Lockie Leonard territory. The surfboard is a skateboard, Dad is a retired boxer instead of a policeman and, like Tim Winton’s eponymous hero, Alex is having trouble adjusting to his first year of high school and coping with his raging hormones:

Alex Jackson snuck a look at Becky Tonella for the 9th time since recess. She sat two rows in front, one aisle across – perfect perving position … When he turned around to have a geek … he got busted big-time by Mr Mackle.