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Fiction
Taylor’s Troubles (1981, 1982, 1985, 2003)
Penguin Books, Pennon Publishing,
116 p, paperback
Everybody likes this account of my first year in high school in 1962. It is
written in a naïve style and – as I have kept a diary since 1957 – I
guess it is a fictionalised account of my first high school diary.
People who will enjoy it: Children in late-primary-early high school. Also
of interest to school teachers and school teachers in training.
Available from:
• Your local book shop in February 2004. This edition includes an extra
chapter, Running The 220 which was published in Penguin’s Puffinalia
magazine, though not in previous editions of the book. This edition is illustrated
by my son Joel, which brightens everything up. Thanks Joel.
•
Your local library. If they haven’t got it, ask for inter-library loan.
• Or contact the publisher direct: pennon@ihug.com.au
Raving on:
Taylor’s Troubles evolved from two stories I wrote for the Newcastle
Teacher’s College Yearbook in 1973. They were Chord Charts and Blond
Hair and Period Five.
When Australia Council have me a New Writer’s Fellowship in 1980, I
returned to those stories and developed a book around them.
Taylor’s Troubles was my small bleat towards ‘writing literature’.
With a Literature Grant, Penguin as my publisher and everybody liking the book,
for 12 whole months I kidded myself that I might have written Tom Brown’s
Schooldays. Then reality set in: a full-time writer’s life is about earning
a weekly wage, not a small six-monthly royalty. In 1981/82 I quickly turned
to ghost-writing, business writing and writing occasional cheat papers for
uni students.
I revisited Tommy Taylor in 1967, which is about the final year of high school,
however from the reader’s perspective the link between the two books
is tenuous, ie. just because you enjoyed one doesn’t mean you’ll
like the other. Taylor’s Troubles is written in the pre-pubescent voice
of the first former. |
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