Bluebird by Malcolm Knox review – vivid characters bring an Aussie beach town to brilliant life
Just a short drive from the sprawling suburbs of Sydney lies a beach oasis trapped in the past, populated by men and women in the grips of midlife crises, clinging to former glory that only becomes reality again in the brief moments they spend surfing the waves of Bluebird beach.
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This is the setting of Malcolm Knox’s sixth novel Bluebird: a book that dwells on the pathos and missed potential of a generation of Australians. Men and women that were raised on the dream of an Aussie life spent in the surf and sun, and who, now in their middle-age, are reckoning with the debt, divorce and disaster of their lives.
Our hero (if you can call him that) is Gordon Grimes, a middle-aged former journalist who has recently taken up residence in a crumbling clubhouse, The Lodge. His wife left him after sleeping with his best mate; his son is socially troubled and awkward; and despite being a part-owner of The Lodge, he is sinking further and further into debt, trying to keep the building from falling down around him.
Outside his window, Gordon can gaze upon the scene of all of his childhood and adolescent triumphs and tragedies. Bluebird beach sprawls ahead, hosting the usual characters who congregate there every day: the crag-faced old men who have little to their name other than their surfing prowess and a desire for the freedom and anonymity of the waves.
As Gordon struggles to keep The Lodge and his finances intact, he juggles his relationships – with his cantankerous parents, his bitter ex-wife and his son – with a dark secret from his past.
Despite this somewhat depressing set-up, Bluebird holds within its pages genuine warmth, laugh-out-loud insights and enough plot twists to keep a reader engaged through its formidable 210 pages.
As an acclaimed journalist and author, Malcolm Knox has a clear skill for observation, and his characters are painted with such vivid and minute detail that the relatability is instant. The loyal crew of Bluebird has-beens who crowd the beach each morning have names like Cnut, Red Cap, Snake and Dog, and each has a backstory and presence that adds colour to the setting in which Gordon’s existential crisis is unfolding. (There is also, of course, “the obligatory Macca and Chook, one per beach from here to the border, and an interchangeable posse of Maccalikes and Chookalikes”.)
In Gordon himself, we are given a white male character in the grips of a breakdown; may sound familiar to literature of late (see the anti-heroes of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble and Heather Rose’s Museum of Modern Love), but he contrasts significantly in that he is both self-aware and sympathetic, with more complexity and depth. Gordon is depressed and self-loathing, but he is not angry. He acknowledges his own role in the breakdown of his marriage and in his financial stress; he is exasperating at times, but genuine at heart.
In contrast to Gordon, his ex-wife Kelly is fierce, independent, and driven to prevent her own life sliding into the same quicksand of disappointment and failure as her husband’s. Then there’s one of the only untroubled characters in the book, Gordon’s goddaughter, Lou: a lesbian in her 20s who is universally admired by the rest of the community for her no-nonsense attitude, her dedication to her godfather, and her ability to make a decent espresso. With its complex and unique female characters, Bluebird avoids wallowing in an exploration of the wronged Aussie bloke, and instead becomes a rumination on human connection.
Importantly, this is not simply a book about a man in the grip of a crisis; it is a story about community, and a satire of the Australian dream. Knox uses humour to flip archetypal “Aussie” characters – the true-blue surfer guy, the chisel-jawed firefighter, the Aussie-battler old man, the cricket-obsessed teenage boy – on their heads. The surfer guy becomes a Japanese Australian whose only form of conversation is to state whether the surf is “shit out” or “good out”; the firefighter is a financial fraudster living with his father despite being in his 50s; the Aussie battler, in the form of Gordon’s father, is a psychotic geriatric scheming to escape his nursing home; and the cricket-obsessed teen is Gordon’s gay, socially awkward son who is unable to respond to any conversation without first saying, “wait, what?”.
Surrounded by these bizarre but charming characters, Gordon shines as a beacon of authenticity, driven by his goals to be a better father, a passable son, and to recreate the dream of Bluebird that he was sold as a child.
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Bluebird is a novel that becomes more enjoyable the deeper you dive into the layers of narrative. Readers can choose to remain on the surface of this book, simply enjoying the hijinks that unfold with the action-packed plot, or they can immerse themselves further into Knox’ gentle but incisive commentary on the Australian dream, and whether it has ever existed at all.
• Bluebird by Malcolm Knox is out now through Allen and Unwin
