BR: The Inner Circle (Gary Crew)

This is the story of two teenage boys: Tony who is white, affluent, ignored by his divorced parents and given money instead of love. He moves between his mum and dad’s homes on a roster system, but whether he is present or not seems inconsequential to either of them; and Joe, an aboriginal boy who came to the city for an apprenticeship from a poor but close and loving family, only to lose the opportunity to covert racism and social exclusion. Ashamed of having failed, he holes up in an abandoned pumping station and writes letters of imagined success to his sister so she will be proud of him.

The book is written in alternating points of view; a chapter for Tony and a chapter for Joe. It works well, allowing the reader to get to know each boy and the fears that each keep inside, hidden from the world and from each other.

We meet Tony first:

I heard a story about a little kid who came home from school and found his mother dead on the kitchen floor. A screwdriver was lying next to her and the electric toaster was still on. At least he found her. The day I came home there was only a note from my Dad:

Stan, I’ve had enough. It’s all over. You know where I am. Give me some time then Tony can come. You’ll cope. – Angie.

I was eight. Until then we had lived like any other kid; Mum and Dad, three bedroom weatherboard house with a brick base and tiled roof, an above-ground pool up the backyard. A Holden, Australia’s own car, was in the garage. I was given a BMX bike for my seventh birthday. Dad was a sales rep for a pump company and Mum was always on the phone, making appointments to demonstrate cosmetics. Everything was normal. There was something nice about that; maybe too nice, even claustrophic.

Then Joe:

I was scared as hell when I went out on that catwalk. I’m no hero. At first I thought maybe rats woke me but when I sat up and listened I knew there was someone mucking around in the room next to mine. I’d been half expecting some derelict to wander in sooner or later but sitting there with my scalp creeping I wished it was much later – like never. I waited a minute, hoping whoever it was would shoot through and leave me alone. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a guy having a pee; I guessed whoever it was intended to stay the night. There was no way I could go back to sleep so I slid over to the door.

Tony and Joe’s paths cross. They have nothing in common aside from their age and emotional confusion – Tony who doesn’t know who he is and where he stands; and Joe who knows who he is but finds himself in a society that doesn’t accept him because of the colour of his skin. Both boys have a lot to learn about themselves, about life, about the future they will carve out for themselves, but mostly Tony for he is the most broken of the two boys. Despite his comparative affluence, access to money, food and scholastic opportunity, none of it meant anything because his parents did not see him. When they split up, Tony became an object to trade, a reminder to his father of the woman who had left him, and to his mother, nothing more than a possession to have for part of the week. When Angie left to be with another man she sought love that her husband and son could not give her – that no-one could give her, and by the end of the book she is an embarrassing example of emotional neediness and despair.

Joe weathers several of Tony’s storms, forgiving and accepting him when a lesser person would struggle to do so. At the end of the book, Joe has found a purpose and place, an apprenticeship with an older man who treats him as an equal and appreciates who he is. Tony is less fortunate and the reader must come to their own conclusions about whether he has the resilience to make it on his own.

This novel is young adult, aimed at a teenage audience (particularly boys) and its messages are strong, simple but not presented in a simplistic manner.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five for an enjoyable read.