Told in slangy prose that cuts to the quick, Good Young Men offers the perspective of three Aboriginal teens in coastal Carraway’s Point. Reeling after a white police officer killed their friend Brandon, each deals with their own life challenges.
Kallum is back home after being expelled from his Sydney school for fighting, though he’s reluctant to tell anyone why he flew into a rage.His dreams of a rugby league career are in tatters.
Jordy has been feeling like an outsider since coming out. Struggling with his father’s alcoholism, he dreams of escaping to acting school.
Meanwhile, the misunderstood Dylan is making a short film on Brandon’s death and is plagued with anxiety over testifying at the trial.
Good Young Men isn’t the kind of tale to wrap up every loose end, but it’s a viscerally powerful slice of life, depicting youth wrestling with racial injustice as they stand on the precipice of adulthood.
Reviewed by Daniel Herborn
Age Guide 14+
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Gary was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience in youth work, Aboriginal health, child protection, the disability sector (including experience working in the youth justice system) and the film industry.
His young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish and We Didn’t Think It Through, have won and been shortlisted for numerous awards, and his most recent novel, I’m Not Really Here, won the CBCA Book of the Year award for Older Readers.
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