Eleven year-old 'Floaty Boy' (so named because of his passion for body-surfing and peculiar talent for buoyancy) inhabits a murky, watery world of wagging school and illicit night surfing. He hovers on the edge of things; he is in between - not boy or man - and inhabits liminal spaces: the edge of the ocean when he body surfs and the edges of a family that seems to be spinning out of control. Vulnerable, Floaty Boy is as prey to his altered dream-like perceptions of the world as he is to the sharks that cruise in the 'other world' of 'down below'.
At the centre of Floaty Boy's universe is Adelaide - mother, wife, lover intelligent, fecund and feminine, surfer, cook and breadwinner. And when her elder son Eddie disappears, her family's world threatens to fall apart - her centre may not hold and Floaty Boy has to find a way to cope.
'The Mindless Ferocity Of Sharks' is a coming of age novel of sorts, but surprisingly it is the children who seem the most mature and the father figure - Tom, the 'Old Man' - who needs to grow up, accept his responsibilities and find his moral centre. This is a mesmerising read - beautifully imagined - very reminiscent of Winton, Faulkner and Carson McCullers, and heralds Brett D'Arcy as a major new literary voice.
