Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas

Man Booker Prize-longlisted author of The Slap (soon to be an NBC miniseries) returns in an “immensely moving” (Sunday Times) story of a young athlete’s coming of age Fourteen-year-old Daniel Kelly is special. Despite his upbringing in working-class Melbourne, he knows that his astonishing ability in the swimming pool has the potential to transform his life, silence the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship, and take him far beyond his neighborhood, possibly to international stardom and an Olympic medal. Everything Danny has ever done, every sacrifice his family has ever made, has been in pursuit of this dream. But what happens when the talent that makes you special fails you? When the goal that you’ve been pursuing for as long as you can remember ends in humiliation and loss? Twenty years later, Dan is in Scotland, terrified to tell his partner about his past, afraid that revealing what he has done will make him unlovable. When he is called upon to return home to his family, the moment of violence in the wake of his defeat that changed his life forever comes back to him in terrifying detail, and he struggles to believe that he’ll be able to make amends. Haunted by shame, Dan relives the intervening years he spent in prison, where the optimism of his childhood was completely foreign. Tender, savage, and blazingly brilliant, Barracuda is a novel about dreams and disillusionment, friendship and family, class, identity, and the cost of success. As Daniel loses everything, he learns what it means to be a good person—and what it takes to become one.

Started reading this late Christmas night, exhausted. Next thing I knew it was 12.30am.
Finished it Boxing Day, couldn't put it down.

Tsiolkas takes a vivisection of Australian life and exposes it: sports culture, ‘win at all costs' mentality, cultural differences, class differences, private school mentality...he writes a vivid tale that had me riveted.

The fact the book is set in Melbourne where I live? Always wins extra brownie points.

For someone who writes and reads predominantly romance and young adult fiction, Barracude isn't the type of novel I'd usually buy.
I'm so glad I did.

Out of sheer curiosity I sorted my Goodreads TBR list (all 106 of them) by descending order based on the average rating. Right at the very bottom was Christos Tsiolkas' controversial The Slap with a measly 3.11. This did not bode well for my next ARC by the same author - Barracuda (kindly supplied by Netgalley). I expected to meet characters I disliked; choppy, fragmented narrative; and some pretty in-your-face grit that was rather uncomfortable to read. Well, I was right. It was all of those things – and I really enjoyed it.

Barracuda follows the story of Daniel Kelly – an on-the-rise star of swimming. Plucked from his working class neighbourhood, a scholarship places him at a prestigious boys high school, where he has to endure bullying and isolation. The novel examines the extents we will go to to fulfil our dreams, and the shattering consequences that occur when our expectations fall short.

The characters in the book are mostly unlikable (I did like Dan's mother – Stephanie, and his best friend Demet.) although I think they are very realistic portrayals. I'm not sure what that says about the kind of people I know, but I think that there is a darkness in all of us, just as there is light. Some reviewers have labelled Danny as “wooden and self-indulgent” and while I agree with the latter, I believe Danny is a very complex and interesting character.

There are a lot of ‘time-jumps' during the narrative and I sometimes had to flip back to try and understand the timeline, but I quickly got used to it, and soon the narrative flowed.

Tsiolkas does not shy away from the gritty reality, so be prepared for some uncomfortable descriptions (at one point we get a really vivid description of Danny's diarrhoea, along with the charming smells that accompany it – TMI!)

In the end the story is about the price you pay to reclaim your life.

I enjoyed Tsiolkas' writing, and despite the low average user rating, I am going to read The Slap anyway.

Hits a lot of fringe and uncomfortable issues. Really got into this from half way on. Live the unconventional nature if his work and the subject matter.