The book is up and away: Boy on a Wire

The launch went well. No point in denying it.

The Lane Bookshop sold out and seem quite excited. Have even threatened to sell the entire first run.

Everything went well.

The MC - Chris Pash, author of The Last Whale - was warm, funny and excellent.

Georgia Richter - publisher and editor of "Boy" - was moving and eloquent.

Reg Cribb - launcher and ex-boarder at Aquinas - was funny, poignant and brilliant.

Frank Sheehan - reader, CCGS chaplain - was subtle, moving and wonderful.

Xave Brown - singer from Denmark WA - sang Bird on a Wire from his very soul and made me cry.

Oh, it was all enough to make a grown author lie in his early morning bed and weep with tears from all sectors of his universe.

Here is a snippet from Reg Cribb's speech:

( If Jon were launching a book that I had penned I’m sure he wouldn’t have a speech prepared. He’d fly by the seat of his pants, coz thats what he does.. But I am a good Aquinas boy and we dont fly by the seat of our pants. )

Jon...Jon...Jon.... a brave man you are. To write this book then have the audacity to launch it at Christ Church Grammar informs me with no fear of retribution, that you have kahunas the size of a space hopper. Methinks Its the equivalent of Ian Fleming launching ‘From Russia With love’ at KGB headquarters in Moscow or Peter Benchley launching ‘Jaws’ in the shark tank at the Miami aquarium.

Jon and I met at the Sprung Writers Festival in Albany. Both the town and myself obviously made an impression on him because here I am launching his wonderful novel and now...well he calls Albany home.

.....

Jon understands that when you go to boarding school, you are basically an independent spirit from age 12. You form your own thoughts, make your own bed, fight your own fights and thus a knock down, stand up showdown with your parents at the end of it all is sadly inevitable. Day bugs, they just dont get it.
My Wholehearted Congrats Jon. You made a sea change to Albany and instead of writing a crappy, sappy TV series starring David Wenham, you wrote a beautiful, honest testimony to adolescence in all its smelly, warty, effluent glory. You have showed us in Boy On A Wire that being adolescent is a time of being barely afloat, bobbing uncontrollably in a merciless raging sea of hormones, with two choices, sink or grow the hell up. Thankfully for us the growing up part is still a work in progress for Jon. His growing up sometime in the near future, would be our literary loss.

....

To read the full text, go to the Fremantle Press blog.