Centre of my World
Sex is notoriously difficult to describe in words. Why else would we have awards for bad sex writing? It follows that writing about gay young adult sex will be even more difficult, if not to write, then certainly to have published, approved and even liked. Andreas Steinhofel should be applauded. Not that Centre of my World is primarily a novel about sex, but it is admirabley erotic. Descriptions of sex are brief but palpably sexual, leaving much to the imagination.
What is this book about? So many things. Great friendships, loyalty, public disgrace; first love, notions of identity, the tangled webs we weave.
Phil and Dianne are twins who drop from their mother’s womb into a cold, inhospitable landscape peopled by strangers. They grow up at ‘Visible’, a crumbling edifice of frightening towers and attics surrounded by an untameable profusion of undergrowth. The villagers shun the twins’ mother ‘Glass’, who entertains male visitors with immodest regularity and who later counsels the sad and desperate women of the town, becoming the feared but needed keeper of their secrets.
Labelled as witches, Phil and Dianne are inseparable until Dianne inexplicably withdraws into her shell and begins mysterious forays into the dark night forest. Forced to seek company elsewhere, Phil forges a close friendship with Kat, the headmaster’s daughter, and the only villager deaf of indifferent to the rumours about the twins. She accepts Phil’s gayness and his family’s strangeness. However this stong bond is tested when Phil becomes infatuated with Nicholas, the handsome, aloof newcomer at school. There follows an intense, sensitively told story of love versus need, secrets that corrode trust and the growth of self-belief.
Steinhofel’s characters are interesting, often quirky and well drawn. The language is at times lyrical, the story always engaging. Let’s hope we see more translations of such high quality overseas literature gracing our Aussie shelves.
Mrs Sweeney
