Kookaburra in a tree. Port Douglas, Far North Queensland. April 2021.
Being Black 'n Chicken, and Chips by Matt Okine
This was a good little read, funny in parts, although not quite as funny as I think intended. This bittersweet coming of age story may have worked better as a memoir rather than a semi-fictionalised book. Matt Okine's youth saw him losing his mother to cancer and the struggles of having a Ghanese father, much like our narrator, "Mike Amon".
While this choice may have both made the writing psychologically safer - and opened up the potential for more dick jokes - it does somewhat undermine the gravitas of what is quite a moving tale of loss, grief and growing up.
It also isn't helped by an inconsistency in a tone that makes me wonder who the intended audience is. For the most part, it reads like a young adult, but the sentimental reverence of the late-90s and nature of many of the jokes and exploration of the mother-son dynamic suggests an older audience.
One other minor quibble that put me on the wrong foot was the choice to fictionalise Brisbane while the rest of Queensland and Australia stayed the same. I found the constant reference to this mysterious place that we all know is Brisbane unreasonably maddening as it consistently took me 'out of the tale.
Despite this, Okine nails the landing, and the tenderness shines through. The final section of the book is the strongest and give a hint at what the author might have achieved if he'd resisted the urge to clumsily reach for the laugh in every situation.
⭐ ⭐ 1/2
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