One Calypso Summer In The Suburbs . . .
A quintessentially Australian story of a boy, a suburb, and a summer of cricket and dreams.
Set during the glorious summer of 1960/61, 'The Gift Of Speed' chronicles the lives, fates and fortunes of a memorable group of characters in a fictitious outer-Melbourne suburb in the post-World War 2 era. The roads and footpaths may have been paved, the houses painted and the gardens grown - but the suburb still hovers between town and country.
We catch up with Michael, 16 and obsessed with cricket; his parents, Rita and Vic, whose marriage is on the rocks; Vic's 70-year-old mother, who comes to stay; and the mysterious factory owner who hurtles around the suburb at night in his sports car . . .
This is Steven Carroll's best book to date - a subtle, powerful novel which puts the 'extra' into 'ordinary' and celebrates what it means to be Australian.
