Book review: Eleven Seasons

THIS year's The Australian/Vogel Award for best unpublished manuscript from a writer under 35 went to Eleven Seasons by Paul D. Carter.

THIS year's The Australian/Vogel Award for best unpublished manuscript from a writer under 35 went to Eleven Seasons, which tracks Jason Dalton from an awkward kid through to a washed-up jock. If that doesn't sound like an enjoyable read, then you haven't Paul D. Carter bring these things alive.

Jason's life as a boy is a suffocating mix: dull and tough. He takes refuge from the jealousy of his upper-middle-class friends and his anonymity at school by kicking a football.

He builds rich fantasies of footy stardom and practises hard to attain them. But as this love begins to bear the fruit he's worked for and wanted, it turns sour. Football has always consoled him, but when his success meets with a sad secret that mars the game for him, he's shafted back to obscurity. Following AFL or even sport in general isn't necessary to appreciate what happens here.

This is a coming-of-age story with an almost documentary accuracy of adolescent tensions. Eleven Seasons is 11 fast-flowing chapters, a river sometimes turbulent, sometimes smooth, but always engaging.

The narrative is imperfect, with an end that's ultimately (unlike the rest of the book) kind of soft. But this story is not about neatness so much as purity. Nor is Carter's style unique - the "sentimental ocker" in present tense is a voice heard from many before him, stretching at least as far as Tim Winton who, in 1981, also took the Vogel. It's Australian and real.

Eleven Seasons
Paul D. Carter
Allen and Unwin, $29.99