SAYONARA BABY

In this novel, an aspiring writer navigates unstable relationships during the early days of the Australian punk scene in the early 1980s.

Skilbeck, the author of Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room(2015), organizes the story of Roxanne “Roxy” Bergson around her romantic interactions with two men. Northern Irish Roxy, who was living in Japan, arrives for college in Adelaide with Samuel, her partner of four years—a man with whom, in her estimation, she was “supposed to have split up weeks before.” She finds Samuel particularly burdensome after she meets and sleeps with Raymond Furnett, an older university student and performance artist, so she confesses her infidelity to Samuel to push him to leave her. For Roxy, Raymond sparks “an overpowering Desire for experiences that would open up new opportunities, realms of being and becoming” that she can fulfill at college. The author’s use of the capital D, as well as Roxy’s tendency toward metaphysical terminology, effectively reveals her propensity for idealization; she even refers to Raymond as a “punk Nijinsky” during one of his performances involving self-harm. Roxy’s story is sure to inspire readers to recall their own youthful rebellions, and not just because of its accounts of wild antics but also because of its poeticism, which tends to linger in the mind. Take Roxy’s reaction to receiving a letter from Raymond (“My nerve endings shrieked like subliminal fruit bats at the sight of it”) or how she describes the “dangerous energy” and “crackling” air around a typewriter that Raymond steals for her to replace one she left on a train. Overall, the novel manages to authentically capture the physical and emotional exuberance of young artists and writers while also tempering it with mature reflection—and showing respect for both points of view.

A sensitive and convincing account of Australian youth culture.