Australian literature is a strange beast. Over the years I’ve picked up some amazing novels. Of course, you’ve heard me rant an awful lot about my alltime favourite, Snail, by Eric Dando, but there have been some others I enjoyed by younger writers. Well, young when I picked them up so long ago. Even today, though, I will snap up anything that looks remotely different by an Australian writer. And why? Because Australian writers don’t stay in print for very long. They go out of print faster than it takes to print them in the first place. It’s an incredible sin, I believe, to keep ancient “classics” in print while losing novels which convey more accurately a vision of Australian literary exploration than Bryce *shudder* Courtenay.

Glue is, in fact, so out of print and under-used in Australia that I can’t even find a picture of its cover art on the internet. Amazing! I had to go with the coyote, instead…

I love Australian writing when it is true to itself. When it’s not trying to be anything other than the natural voice of the writer and a study of his/her known environment. I love it when it’s not talking about sweeping plains or other country-western clichés. When it is urban, and completely surrendering to an Australian feel.

One story I often think of when I think of that is Glue, by Leonie Stevens. It’s always remained a favourite to me, and I find it hard to justify it because it is, essentially, a love story. It’s not very manly, there’s no real scenes of uber-violence, no one gets nailed to a tree, and to top it off – not a single ninja. Yet, it resonates inside me because it takes me back to my teens. It reminds me of a time I spent drifting from house to house, from friends to friends and drink to drink. It reminds me of that slummy feeling. That transience that leaves you both determined never to sleep outside under a bridge again and when you absolutely have to leave the house then no less than three stars will do on my hotel, thankyou very much.

Plotwise, it concerns a young girl, Merry, who’s committed a rather naughty little crime. That is, she’s murdered someone. While on the run, and to lay low, she hides out in a suburb which is being demolished in the name of progress. Hiding in an abandoned house, she soon becomes part of a wild fog of passing-through party-goers who all use the houses as their own temporary slum housing. Hiding out in one of the houses is James, though he’s not slumming it. The house is his. He’s just not really wanting to move out just because the Government says he should. And he’s got a plan on how to deal with them…

Merry and James become friends, and she soon realises he’s involved in a distinctly unhealth obsession with your average Goth Queen, Florida. Florida herself is in a semi-abusive relationship, but she’s obviously using James as her crutch, and her get-out card (just in case she ever needs one), so James is left standing in the wing waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And getting more and more frustrated as the book moves along.

You feel his pain, his mind-numbing confusion and the horrible feeling of deadlock in his life. It’s truly an absorbing ride, and one made so much better by the characters who though there’s pain, confusion, betrayal and weirdness, don’t seem to wallow or grovel. Merry’s voice is a fine balance to the melodramatic heartache of James, and the manipulative Florida. It’s a wonderful trio of voices melting into each other with a sublime skill, and a plot which keeps moving at a generous pace and ends with an explosive and ground-shaking resolution.

It is Leonie’s wonderfully authentic style which grabbed me then, and still grabs me now. I can see several of my friends in here, and can’t help but sometimes cry out, “that happened to ME!” It’s just an excessively natural and original little tale in here. An Australian Urban story. Unique, because it’s ours. Why the hell we don’t push these more in our country is beyond me. Why they’re not still in print baffles me. Why there’s no movies, no tv series, nothing. Just absence where Australia used to be, and I really do hate sounding nationalistic.

Leonie has written a fine novel here, and one which is absurdly out of print.

Fix this, Penguin, you naughty penguin, you!