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It was remiss of me last week to fail to mention that the winner of the 2012 Australian-Vogel Literary Award had been announced as Eleven Seasons by Paul D. Carter. I put it down to age and senility. |
'Some guys are good at school and telling jokes or they have the latest stuff. Others are cricketers and basketball players: they can do things with the ball that make their classmates talk about them when they're not around. His thing is football. He becomes the centre of whichever team he plays for: he becomes the advantage.'
MELBOURNE, 1985. Jason Dalton sits on his bed and counts his football cards, dreaming of the day he too is immortalised in the public eye. He's young and gifted, a natural player who can do anything with the ball in his hand. If only everything else in his life was as obvious to him as playing.
GOLD COAST, 1991. The bottom has fallen out of Jason's life; he's now a high-school dropout, tired and wasted on the Gold Coast, with an explosive family secret still ringing in his ears. He needs to get his life back. But first he needs to find out who he is.
