A gritty and heartfelt gay coming-of-age story set in the world of FIFO workers and tradies in Western Australia, from the author of the bestselling Invisible Boys. Giacomo Brolo, aka Jack, is a mess. He works piecemeal construction gigs in remote WA, drinks himself to oblivion and is estranged from his family and friends. He's consumed by a self-loathing all too common for closeted men who have grown up in a world of hate and shame. But then Jack returns to his regional hometown of Geraldton for a family wedding. He hasn't been back since he fled at the age of eighteen, and his past soon catches up with him. Turns out Jack's deeply conservative Italian family would prefer he remained in the closet. Then he finds out he may have conceived a son with his teenage girlfriend, and now Jack needs to convince her and her new husband that he's fit to be a father figure. And whatever happened to Xavier, the former schoolmate who Jack was in love with and whose rejection spurred him to leave Geraldton in the first place? Is Jack doomed to live a dead-end life – or can he open himself up to the possibility of love, found family and connection?
Author
Holden Sheppard is an award-winning West Australian author. His debut novel Invisible Boys (Fremantle Press, 2019), about three teenage boys coming of age and coming to terms with their sexuality in the regional town of Geraldton, won multiple accolades, including the 2019 West Australian Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer and the 2018 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. In 2020, Invisible Boys was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and was named a Notable Book by the Children's Book Council of Australia. The novel is now in development as a television series. Holden's second novel The Brink (Text Publishing, 2022), about a group of school leavers whose post-graduation holiday is thrown into chaos by a death, won the Young Adult Book of the Year Award at the 2023 Indie Book Awards. The Brink is currently shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier's Literary Awards and was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by The West Australian. Holden's writing has been published in books including Growing Up in Country Australia (Black Inc, 2022), Hometown Haunts (Wakefield Press, 2021), How To Be An Author (Fremantle Press, 2021) and Bright Lights, No City (Margaret River Press, 2019). He has written articles for WA Today, 10 Daily, the Huffington Post, the ABC and DNA Magazine. His creative works have been published in journals including Griffith Review, Westerly, page seventeen and Indigo Journal. When he's not writing, Holden works out at the gym, plays touch footy (AFL), barracks for the Collingwood Football Club and occasionally works as a labourer. He lives in Perth with his husband.
