Two nights later our whole life is changed. I am reading a comic in bed, when from way down the hall I head my mother yell, 'Frank! Frank!' There is something in her voice that I have never heard before—not just panic, which is the first thing that strikes me, but a deeper note of fear...'

Garry Kinnane's haunting evocation of his boyhood in Melbourne in the 40s and 50s brings to life the struggles of a small family. Frank and Thelma and their two boys, Garry and Ray, are always on the move—from Richmond to Mount Macedon, to North Melbourne, and finally to an uneasy life in Valentine Street.

Garry Kinnane is the author of George Johnston: A Biography (winner of The Age Book of the Year 1986) and Colin Colahan: A Portrait.