- Published: 24 July 2013
- ISBN: 9781926428505
- Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 264
- RRP: $34.99
His Stupid Boyhood: A Memoir
- Published: 24 July 2013
- ISBN: 9781926428505
- Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 264
- RRP: $34.99
A story told with puns, poetry and almost photographic recall, full of the influence of books and a precocious curiosity, of joy in discovering how the world works ... Hilarious ... Rich with episodes and characters that stay around to haunt the reader with exuberant humour or a little stab of empathetic sadness.
Katharine England, The Advertiser (Adelaide)
Excruciating and hilarious in equal measure ... His Stupid Boyhood has a delightful, almost improvisatory quality ... It illuminates Goldsworthy's wider oeuvre ... by making explicit many of the tensions and contradictions surrounding sexuality and masculinity that move beneath the surfaces of his fiction ... He is asking us to share in an intimate landscape we almost never glimpse even in those we are closest to.
James Bradley, Weekend Australian
Warm and entertaining.
Kári Gíslason, Australian Book Review
Goldsworthy's self-deprecating candour adds a light touch to his existential searching.
Michael McGirr, Saturday Age
Goldsworthy has the control to make his memoir of a precociously bright boy growing up in regional towns more than a rose-coloured-glasses trip through 1950s Australia ... This is an intelligent, humorous and at times emotional insight into the boyhood forces that shaped the man.
Michael Pickering, Men's Style
There are passages that echo the common experience of all males of a particular vintage ... Charming.
Herald Sun
Goldsworthy reminds us of the random violence of childhood, and the capacity of children – now unfashionable to remark upon – to be wicked, lying manipulators ... A teacher's son, he captures perfectly the peripatetic strangeness of that existence, and the predictable (for a bookish child) comforts of eccentric school libraries. An engaging and nostalgic read.
Walter Mason, Good Reading
Honest, unflaggingly humorous and entertaining, and conjures wonderful images, which enable the reader to share Goldsworthy's own journey. More please.
Chris Harrington, Books & Publishing
A hilarious account of coming-of-age adventures, it goes some way to providing clues as to why his life led him down a path of medicine and writing.
Sun-Herald
Goldsworthy recalls his larrikin, peripatetic Aussie childhood with humour and honesty.
Burnie Advocate
[Goldsworthy] tells his story with wit and mordant self-deprecation.
Newcastle Herald