Australian publishing has never seen anything like it. Bryce Courtenay's latest book, Tommo & Hawk has been flogged around the country like a new shampoo. In a nationwide bombardment, Penguin Books gave away 500,000 samples of chapters from the book at traln stations, airports, ferry terminals and bus depots. Penguin's multi-million-dollar deal with Mr Courtney resulted in the biggest print run of any Australian book ever .... 25O,000 copies. In a country where a hardback is considered a success after 10,000 to 15,000 sales, Australia has rarely seen book marketing on this scale. Penguin's Managing Director, Mr Peter Field, said the company had spent an unprecedented sum, " in the high six figures", on marketing the book. The hardback edition of Tommo & Hawk hit the shelves in grocery stores, newsagents and discount stores. This is in line with Mr Courtenay's goal of putting books where people are. (The author is appalled that only 17 per cent of Australians visit bookstores). All this, plus in store book slgnlngs, and media interviews and a $250,000 TV advertising campaign. The 64-year-old author of The Power of One lives like a man with no tomorrow. On top of selling more than three million books, Mr Courtenay is a keen marathon runner, has set up literary programs, works as an advertising consultant and created the concept behind Cadbury's Yowie chocolates. He says he's got 17 book ideas in his head and there's no time to waste. "The tea Iady in my office and the receptionist - both avid readers with no pretences - pronounced it the best book they've ever read. I think it's probably OK!" a satisfied Mr Courtenay pronounced. So..what did this reviewer think of Tommo & Hawk? Am I about to join the ranks of sycophantic Courtenay receptionists and charladies? Well.........yes...and no!!. As some of you have been reminding me, I took two months to read this book, which should tell you something... On the other hand, parts of this book are so incredibly well-written that one finds oneself going back..and back... And it is a book that can be read on many levels..I am pondering some of the allegorical issues still, after two readings.. And the research has been so thorough, the penportraits so damningly human, , the backgrounds so vividly painted that this is truly a novel in which to lose oneself! The total vicarious package...sharing adventures and emotions we would not otherwise have experienced, with people we would not otherwise have met, in times we could not otherwise have visited! And the characters!!! Not since Defoe's Moll Flanders has there been such an incredible procession of life's pilgrims, warts, body odour, flatulent emissions and all. Even Chaucer would doff his cap, I think! And I have a feeling Mr Conrad is turning in his grave in the knowledge that his description of a whale hunt has been bettered...Captain Ahab was a pretty civilized gent , we realise, after Bryce Courtenay's sadistic captain and first mate have flensed our senses. Not a pretty book, far from that..but nor does it depict a pretty subject, the author succeeding all-too-well in reminding us that we are, after all, descended mainly from those who had already made a mess of life back home! But if you gentle Olde- Worlde-Country folk want to see what happened to those Black Sheep you exported to the colonies this might be just the book to show you how life was in the bloody, raw days of colonial parturition...a timely read, too, given the noises of shocked horror from traditionalist voices as we seek to cut the apron strings from Mother Britain! ( And be not put off by this book's piano-prop weight and 673 pages....this is sturdy thick paper, myopia-assist print size and note-taking width margins.) I fact, I rather think Courtenay has painted so vivid a picture of an embryonic Antipodean, (foreign) society that even the most loyal British Empirist must be deterred from attempting to halt our groping path to the Republic! How successfully the author has reminded us that our southern self-satisfaction is a veneer laid uneasily on a base and foundations built by the crime and criminals of other, more sophisticated lands! And yet- because Courtenay paints such a vividly gruesome picture, we can also see how far we have come as a nation that cares for its people...

We hunt and jail our paedophiles now...what happened to Tommo would be heavily punished in the Tasmania of today... Each twin would now receive unlimited, individually prescribed counselling.. and financial compensation as a victim of violent crime... We have Anti-discrimination laws to prevent repetition of the events of Lambing Flat, where miners wore Asian pigtails, redskin-scalp style, about their waists... We have generous welfare schemes to ensure that no woman in Australia is forced to sell herself on the streets... Nor do unmarried Australian women need to give up their babies for adoption. In fact, very few do..it is now almost impossible to adopt a non-handicapped Australian child.... We have outlawed the opium trade and set up rehabiitation schemes for drug and alcohol addiction... White New Zealanders have treatied with their indigenous hosts since the Maori wars... We expect seamen to belong to protective unions and to enjoy the same rights as other workers... We legislate to protect and ensure children's rights.... ....And gambling is becoming more and more legal....

Yes, we can turn over that mirror Bryce Courtenay holds up to that past society with a degree of relief, knowing that the reverse reflection is kinder, but knowing, too that we must look back often, lest we forget to keep the new side well polished!

To use a good old Aussie term, this is a Hell Of A Good Book!! And what an eventfilled journey our author has choeographed for us ..from Tasmanian wildeness to whaleboats to the fledgeling New Zealand cities to Maori villages and mountain fortifications...then back to Sydneytown and the Australian goldfields. And our heroes?, (who narrate the story in present tense in alternate chapters..a technique used less successfully by Monsarrat in The Kapillan Of Malta. The twins are brought to the new land by Mary Abacus, ex-whore herself, now turned businesswoman, and her partner, the philosophising card-sharp, Ikey Solomon. A kidnapping has taken place before the story begins, and gradually we learn of the sadistic treatment each twin has endured .. things so terrible have been done to these boys that their entire lives must be spent recovering. Thus, as well as being the rollicking, bloodthirsty historical saga this tome appears at first flip, Tommo & Hawk is also a `Rites Of Passage' novel, for we see both Tommo and Hawk maturing, mellowing, mending, softening, finding and losing love, discovering and keeping a philosophy of life- and a reason for living...or dying. That they are still at an age we would call adolescence when the book ends so abruptly is not just to realise the author has left the way wide open for sequels..it is also to acknowledge vital differences in time, place, ideas and standards of living; life was shorter then, young people needing to grow up much faster than we ask of their descendents today! And the three black and white feathers on the cover..and etched onto pages here and there throughout the story? (for this book even utilizes some old-style typographical embellishments!). Well, just a hint.... With so much rhyming slang and play-on-words being used as a base for humour in those days..what would a serious harlot called Maggie Pye take as her trademark? And..*giggle* what else could a nasty person called Art F Sparrow be dubbed but Sparrowfart?? I'm really looking forward to the sequels... perhaps the next episode could be marketed at football games....and the the third could be out in time for the Sydney Olympics...? And the film? It's a natural..and what a superb film it will be!! Blood, sweat, tears..murder and mayhem.. a couple of great love stories with unhappy endings..but lots of Salt-Of_The-Earth humour coupled with sage philisophical utterances! No shortage of little emaciated cockney types to play Tommo, but imagine the search for a seven foot black S>N>A>G> to play Hawk!! It will be a difficult job,casting that role, and testing...... but someone has to do it!! Hmmm...wonder where I apply!!?

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