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It is outrageous that someone as young, beautiful and – goddamit – as happy-looking as Sofie Laguna has written this wee beauty of a novel. The story is recounted, like Mark Haddon's similarly feted 2003 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, from the point of view of a boy with Asperger syndrome. Young Jimmy's ferocious sensitivities show us the world anew. In hardscrabble, working-class Melbourne, Jimmy's asthmatic Mum is his "mountain" and the family's precarious rock. There's Dad, loved by Mum, and by Jimmy when he's not beating up Mum; Dad with his shit job scraping rust, his alcohol "the only thing that can stop up his vents", his Merle Haggard records, his man shed, his frustration and his violence. There's Robby, Jimmy's fast-growing older brother, who finally beats Dad into submission, and leaves. Then Mum – but no, I shouldn't give away any more. As a "domestic" novel, it could be cliched, but Laguna, through Jimmy's wonderful eyes, makes every sentence, every word, sing and soar.
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