This lovey book reminded me of ‘Sucking Sherbet Lemons’, it's a first book about a awkward, gawky boy, who obviously gay (but only knows he’s different) set in some backward backwater filled with bigots and the peculiar attitudes, standards and expectations of suburban life in the 1970’s and 80’s. Like Lemons it’s also very very funny and made me smile every time I picked it up.

It taps into that very particular style of antipodean story telling which covers the weakling abnormal underdog, living in a family of colourful grotesques who not only manages to survive against the odds but triumphs in the end by entering and winning some local competition using the innate talent that’s been suppressed and discouraged by the macho small minded community. It’s a common theme for a lot of films from down under and it must also be a common experience as it rings true in this book in a delightfully honest way.

I was surprised that the author was a women as she manages to catch the keenly felt embarrassment, crushes and twinges of a young gay man growing up in a harsh and unwelcoming world, but then no gender has a monopoly on cringe. The daily life of this Tasmanian family is captured in the authors lovely style which rocks gently in and out of Julian’s self obsessed world taking in his mothers sacrifices and profound love for him, his fathers awkward disappointment and their dysfunctional marriage, his sisters growing delinquency and the whispers about ‘Uncle Norman’. Norman’s eventual arrival at the end of the book is beautifully handled and lit me up for a day as it was such a warm hearted and generous bit of writing.

There are some magnificently monstrous characters in this book and D.J. Connell manages to summarize a real sense of Tasmanian small town life and the pretentious and peculiar class and cool-kid divisions that all squeakily hinge on colour TV, the car your dad drives and not being a poof.

Although Julian does daily struggle with his life this is at heart an uplifting story of triumph against adversity, with some feverishly comical set pieces, blissfully camp moments that shine with a well polished sequined pizzazz and the kind of nuanced emotional insights that gives this narrator lead book the feel of a real coming out memoir.

There are a couple of bits in the book which raised an eyebrow, and I get the feel that Ms Connell had one eye on the film rights, but as a debut novel this is a delight, and Connell’s  got an instant gay fan club forming and one hopes that this isn’t the only time we get to peep into the word of Julian Corkle.

Lovely, tender, warm and fantastically funny. Well done Ms Connell for sharing your ‘twinkle twinkle’ with us.

Out now £10

From the publisher here:

Or from all good book shops.