And more to come
Now that Boy on a Wire looks like a book, feels like a book and is, indeed, a book, I feel a need to explore the various issues approached in its pages. And there are a number. In this first entry I will skip briefly through them.
First and foremost, not surprisingly, given Boy is set in a boy’s boarding school, bullying is a major matter. In my day it was rampant and it is hard to imagine a day passing without someone copping a push, a shove, a slap, a towel flick, an insult. On and on it went and every so often one of us broke.
Depression also played a very important role in my years. There were boys who were shy, of course, and others who seemed to get a bit sad from time to time. Were they suffering from depression, or just a mild melancholia? I fell into my first serious episode when I was 12. How many others suffered similarly I have no idea, can only guess, and will probably never know.
There were two other issues that had a major impact on this writer: heavy metal poisoning and loss of faith. I experienced both. As a child I had an illness called pinks disease, a result of mercury poisoning. Its symptoms are somewhat similar to lead poisoning and I probably had that too. Loss of faith seems, looking back, to be the logical outcome for an intensely religious boy who found himself in a church run school where the basic tenants he had learnt seemed to play little or no role in the life of the boarding school community.
Here they are then, the major issues, with a couple of others that have come to mind:
- depression
- bullying
- loss of faith
- heavy metal poisoning
- sibling rivalry
- father and son relationships
Others might find others, but they won’t until the book is out and available. I’ll keep this site posted.
Something is hapening
The most frequently asked question about “Boy on a Wire”, so far
Is the boy you?
No. It can’t be me. This is me. I am not trapped in a book of 231 pages.
Did you go to boarding school?
Yes.
Which one?
None of your business.
No, seriously.
A boarding school in Perth, West Australia: Christ Church Grammar School.
Did you enjoy it?
I did, for the first couple of years. It was a great adventure and I was very happy to be away from my home town and my parents.
But then?
It wore me out. And the longer I stayed the more cruelty I saw: boys on boys and masters on boys.
Did the experience scar you?
Yes. But it is now clear to me that the biggest scars it left on me were the scars I saw it leave on others.
Surely you drew on your experiences?
Yes.
So the boy is a lot like you?
He is like me. I was the starting point, the constant reference, but eventually he became himself, Jack Muir. I love Jack. Jack is a lot like me. His journey is a lot like mine. But he is not me. He is the twin brother I never had, the one I would have shared everything with, told everything to.