‘Marlo’

Marlo is one of those towns passed through on the way to somewhere else. In the 1950s, when Jay Carmichael’s new novel is set, towns like Marlo were small and, too often, small-minded. Ignorance, inexperience and self-absorption can live hand-in-glove with the idea of “community”. Christopher, a young man from a farm, is not a good fit in Marlo. He needs a place where he can breathe and with the help of his older sister he organises to move to the city, to Melbourne. Marlo opens with his arrival at the station, where, as all country children do, he calls his sister to tell her he’s arrived. He’s safe.

His sister has arranged for him to stay with Kings, an old schoolfriend. Meeting him at the pub, Christopher is startled to see a man so attractive that he “wants to run [my] hand over him and verify his realness”. It was Kings who had made him first aware of his...