AustLit

'In the boarding house it doesn't matter who hit you first, or if they miss-hit, you have to get them back. It's kid against kid, dog against dog. We all have rabies. We all have pinks disease. We're all foaming at the mouth. Tit for tat, the strong rule the weak, the weak cry. Only those who can find the mean streak in them survive. I'm a survivor. Briggsy taught me that. If you're weak, unspeakable things happen to you. The bastards won't get me.

It is the 1960s in Perth, Western Australia. For Thomas Muir - cool and steady - life is a thing that goes on outside him. But for his brother, hot-headed Jack - believer in honesty and justice - life must be wrestled to be understood.

Jack Muir's years of survival and his coming of age in a boys' boarding school are sharply revealed in this dislocated memoir. Jack's story is funny and raw. It will strike a nerve in those who were there - and in anyone who has ever asked how it is that one becomes a man.' (Publisher's blurb)