Luck in the Greater West (Damian McDonald, ABC Books, $29.95 pb, ISBN 9780733322136, October) *****

Luck in the Greater West explores the circumstances and interconnections of a disparate group of inhabitants of the vast suburban sprawl that is greater western Sydney: Whitey, a small-time drug dealer and Sonja, a high school student; Abdullah an angry, misogynistic young Lebanese man and his friend, Fadi; Salvatore, the senior sergeant at a local police station, and his two teenage children—Mia and Charlie. All of these lives intermingle, in often confronting ways. Fifteen-year-old Sonja moves in with 26-year-old Whitey. Abdullah and Fadi lead a gang of small boys that includes Charlie in pack raping unsuspecting girls, while Mia becomes Abdullah’s girlfriend. Salvatore tries to investigate the rapes, suspecting Whitey is connected somehow. With a keen eye for the society of western Sydney, McDonald weaves an often grim, but completely engaging story about life on the edge of the prosperous times we now live in. It is a book about anger and dislocation, about disadvantage and lack of opportunity, and about growth and hope. This is a provocative and skilfully executed literary novel that deserves a wide readership. Luck in the Greater West is the 2007 winner of the ABC Fiction Award.

Shane Strange is a bookseller at independent bookseller of the year Riverbend Books in Brisbane

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker