Down The Breakie

This sympathetic tale of the hard years of the 1930s and 40s captures a rough world and tough people. Growing up in this harsh world, the boy Sanders tells of the out-of-work miner scratching for chunks of 'bad' coal and the men 'on relief' breaking stones. Gangs of local boys fight it out on the beach with sharp shells as missiles while Clappo, maker-of-men, their schoolmaster, adds to the classroom traumas of a young boy's life. One chapter, The Ring, is a classic, as it tells of Sander's initiation into boxing lore.
But in contrast to this rough world lies the the beach and the breakwater. Here Sanders escapes to fish under the wharf, to watch the morning king tide and the prawn boat come in with its night catch.
William Olson's narrator, Sanders, is young in his enthusiasm and zest for life, whether surfing, fishing or fighting. And yet Sanders is mature in his precise and intensely sympathetic depiction of people and place. Above all Sander's story will touch the heart with its human warmth.
For all its energy, Down the Breakie is a patient book, waiting for readers, which it will surely find, for it is a fine, honest and beautifully written book.