Stephen Orr: Attempts to Draw Jesus

By NORMAN BILBROUGH

Jack lives in Jamestown, an inland Australian town. He's 17 and just been made redundant at the local BP service station. He lives with his mum and dad, but he likes his gran best.

In Adelaide, Clive Rollins (Rolly), also 17, is on the dole. To an extent it suits him: he's a dreamer. He lives in a run-down house with his mum, and their ex-priest lodger, Arthur. Rolly walks the streets, he thinks on the beach. He's not unhappy. He keeps a journal, and he reads.

Both lads have exuberant fantasy lives. They're endearing characters, vivid, a bit out of the ordinary. But a man needs a job. A direction. Both of them apply for positions as jackaroos on a remote Outback station on the edge of the Simpson Desert. Rolly buys a ute - a heap of junk - and the lads meet for the first time at a motel at Alice Springs, on their journey north. They become mates.

So far a readable story is manifesting. There is the hope of resounding events, gruelling adventures and watershed realisations ahead.

But not so.

As the cast of characters grows, Orr hits the reader with every single point of view available. On one hand the terrain is arid and inhospitable; on the other it's somewhat overcrowded, jumbled and increasingly confused. The author offers one story and distorts and peppers it with the remarks and fantasies of other characters.

On arrival at the station the lads team up with Elly, the boss' energetic daughter and - considering that teenagers are relatively short on life experience - the fantasies become more frequent.

Sid, the taciturn boss, is married to Mary, a devout Philippine woman, and there is a dysfunctional son, Egg.

It's not a happy family. The lads cause a couple of accidents and when Sid discovers Rolly starkers with his daughter, he sends the boys out to look after bores at the back of the station.

The story jerks along, always disrupted by many points of view, until Jack and Rolly hop in the ute to head for freedom. Except ... the reader has already been warned.

There are frequent references to Burke and Wills and the DIG tree, and the careless protagonists seem to be tempting a similar fate to the explorers'. This is a young man's book. Jack, or Rolly, could have written it.

The author has got a bit to say, and sometimes says it in an entertaining manner. But the necessity to let every character get his or her oar in makes for a distracting ride. And finally there is just not enough story material available.

* Published by Allen & Unwin, $24.95

* Norman Bilbrough is a Wellington writer.