Book Reviews for Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

Jasper Jones is Craig Silvey’s second novel. It is set during a hot summer in 1965 in a small West Australian town, Corrigan, and narrated by thirteen-year-old Charlie Bucktin. Charlie is surprised by Jasper Jones’ appearance at his sleepout window: Jasper needs his help. Jasper, mixed race, rebellious and solitary, represents danger and intrigue for Charlie: he is desperate to impress him and so goes along with Jasper. This action unleashes a sequence of events that will change Charlie, Jasper and the people of the town of Corrigan. Silvey’s elegant prose touches on racism, adultry, truth and lies, human weakness, falling in love, trust, small-town boredom, cricket, coming of age, love of literature, hope and despair and long-kept secrets. Silvey’s characters are compelling, his dialogue is credible and his plot takes a few unexpected turns. The subject matter could have been heavy going, but Silvey provides us with exceptional comic relief in the delightful Jeffrey Lu, Charlie’s best friend. Jeffrey’s conversations with Charlie provide many laugh-out-loud moments. Charlie’s relationship with his father, Wes, and later with his prospective girlfriend, Eliza, provide a heartening contrast to some other aspects of the story. Jasper Jones is an outstanding and decidedly enjoyable novel: let us hope for more like this from Craig Silvey.

The book opens dramatically when Charlie, the narrator, is taken by Jasper Jones to a macabre scene at the old jarrah tree by the river. Charlie’s peaceful--if nerdish--life is overturned ‘like a snowdome paperweight that’s been shaken’. Throughout a summer of cricket matches, the Vietnam War and shy courtship of the beautiful Eliza, some disturbing facts are revealed while others remain suppressed. Present tense and short sentences are often employed, enticing the reader along at a lively pace. The feel and smell of small-town Australia are evoked skillfully, and yet (many) literary references are to US classics, Mark Twain and especially To Kill a Mockingbird. Elements of the coming-of-age story are mixed with those of the detective novel, livened with scenes of laugh-aloud humour. The sparring dialogue between Charlie and his friend Je? rey, and the references to aspiring novelists will seem--to some readers--true to character, to others, tiresome. Jasper Jones, the Aboriginal scapegoat for the town’s misadventures, is elusive and independent to the end. Themes of courage and cowardice, and the vitality of the ever-observant Charlie, will ensure this book’s appeal especially to readers who are young and/or male.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (March 2009, Vol 88, No 6.) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

This is my favourite book for this year! An Australian "coming of age" novel with nods to both Harper Lee and Mark Twain, I think Silvey's "Jasper Jones" is set to become our version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and should be on all high school reading lists. His well developed characters always ring true and the plot moves very well indeed as we follow Charlie, Jasper and Jeffrey through the summer that will change all their lives. Craig Silvey evokes the torpor of a long, hot summer in small-town Western Australia and accurately depicts the petty meanness, ignorance and prejudices inherent in some levels of every small community. As they move out of childhood and begin to work out the kind of adults they will eventually become, Charlie and Jeffrey simply glow with life as they face, and come to terms with, their first challenges. I truly loved this book, not least because of the insight it has given me into the machinations of my own teenaged sons mind and would eagerly recommend it.