Article - Sunday Telegraph - August 6th, 2006
McInnes's Winning Streak
Edition: 1 - StateSection: Features, pg. 082
Last year, actor William McInnes proved he could write as well as act when his delightful childhood memoir, A Man's Got To Have A Hobby, became a one of the favourite books of the year.
As the great Canadian author Margaret Atwood says about authors and first books, a lot of people probably have a good first book in them, and it's probably about themselves. The big test of a true author, she says, is when they sit down to write their second book -- and their third and fourth (Atwood has written 45 books, so it's probably unfair to use her as a benchmark).
With his second book and his debut novel, McInnes passes the test with distinction. Cricket Kings (Hodder, $32.95) bears all the hallmarks of his first book: humour, sweetness and light, with hidden emotional depths, a flair for dialogue and an endearing, gruff sort of sentimentality.
It undoubtedly has more of the author in it as well -- McInnes is reportedly a cricket fanatic, and his main character is a middle-aged man who plays in the Yarraville West fourths, a motley crew of "sportsmen''.
Now, there are cricket fans and there are the rest of us who just don't get it. So I hasten to add that although the word "cricket'' is in the title and all the action centres on a Saturday match, this book isn't just about cricket, but about many other little things that add up to a bigger life picture.
McInnes has a good eye for small details that get to the nub of human emotion, but first he builds great characters through which these scenes play out.
Chris Anderson is the lead character here. A solicitor with a wife and two kids, a bit of a boofhead with a big heart and a bullish demeanour, Anderson seems hopelessly inept at communicating emotions. He can't seem to get his big heart and his big mouth to work in synch. Chris loves his cricket, and come summertime, Friday afternoons are devoted to grappling together a ragtag group to play the next day. Chris and the boys have been playing at the Cec. Bull Memorial Oval since forever, and on this particular Saturday, he has to makeup the numbers (again) with his bookish son, Lachlan, the intellectually challenged Brian, a couple of under-17s, and an old friend and fellow cricketer who has cropped up out of the blue.
There's an element of father-and-son tension between Chris and Lachlan, and a quiet mystery about Chris's dead brother, Tony, a professional cricketer. These unspoken issues unfold as McInnes sketches in his characters.
Cricket Kings' gentle action takes place over the course ofone summer's day, and McInnes's funny cast of characters reminisce aboutthe mundane and the meaningful. Surrounding the oval are houses whose inhabitants interact with the players and other visitors to the field, and here McInnes cleverly weaves a community's web -- tracing all the lines of connection between past and present, between stranger and friend. In doing so, he has written a story about the things that unite us more than the things that divide us -- although that's not to say that there is no dramatic tension.
McInnes skirts dangerously close to trying to fit too many moral lessons into his narrative, and it's a relief when he pulls back from potential heavy-handedness into humour.
And there's plenty of that, with the author taking great pleasurein the Australian vernacular and toilet humour which, if it's possible,is delivered with great finesse.
In Cricket Kings, William McInnes has written a big-hearted novel with character, leaving the reader with the urge to stand up and cheer with a kind of smiling optimism about the world and humanity. It's also to his great credit that he makes cricket out to be a remotely interesting sport.
Edition: 1 - StateSection: Features, pg. 082
Last year, actor William McInnes proved he could write as well as act when his delightful childhood memoir, A Man's Got To Have A Hobby, became a one of the favourite books of the year.
As the great Canadian author Margaret Atwood says about authors and first books, a lot of people probably have a good first book in them, and it's probably about themselves. The big test of a true author, she says, is when they sit down to write their second book -- and their third and fourth (Atwood has written 45 books, so it's probably unfair to use her as a benchmark).
With his second book and his debut novel, McInnes passes the test with distinction. Cricket Kings (Hodder, $32.95) bears all the hallmarks of his first book: humour, sweetness and light, with hidden emotional depths, a flair for dialogue and an endearing, gruff sort of sentimentality.
It undoubtedly has more of the author in it as well -- McInnes is reportedly a cricket fanatic, and his main character is a middle-aged man who plays in the Yarraville West fourths, a motley crew of "sportsmen''.
Now, there are cricket fans and there are the rest of us who just don't get it. So I hasten to add that although the word "cricket'' is in the title and all the action centres on a Saturday match, this book isn't just about cricket, but about many other little things that add up to a bigger life picture.
McInnes has a good eye for small details that get to the nub of human emotion, but first he builds great characters through which these scenes play out.
Chris Anderson is the lead character here. A solicitor with a wife and two kids, a bit of a boofhead with a big heart and a bullish demeanour, Anderson seems hopelessly inept at communicating emotions. He can't seem to get his big heart and his big mouth to work in synch. Chris loves his cricket, and come summertime, Friday afternoons are devoted to grappling together a ragtag group to play the next day. Chris and the boys have been playing at the Cec. Bull Memorial Oval since forever, and on this particular Saturday, he has to makeup the numbers (again) with his bookish son, Lachlan, the intellectually challenged Brian, a couple of under-17s, and an old friend and fellow cricketer who has cropped up out of the blue.
There's an element of father-and-son tension between Chris and Lachlan, and a quiet mystery about Chris's dead brother, Tony, a professional cricketer. These unspoken issues unfold as McInnes sketches in his characters.
Cricket Kings' gentle action takes place over the course ofone summer's day, and McInnes's funny cast of characters reminisce aboutthe mundane and the meaningful. Surrounding the oval are houses whose inhabitants interact with the players and other visitors to the field, and here McInnes cleverly weaves a community's web -- tracing all the lines of connection between past and present, between stranger and friend. In doing so, he has written a story about the things that unite us more than the things that divide us -- although that's not to say that there is no dramatic tension.
McInnes skirts dangerously close to trying to fit too many moral lessons into his narrative, and it's a relief when he pulls back from potential heavy-handedness into humour.
And there's plenty of that, with the author taking great pleasurein the Australian vernacular and toilet humour which, if it's possible,is delivered with great finesse.
In Cricket Kings, William McInnes has written a big-hearted novel with character, leaving the reader with the urge to stand up and cheer with a kind of smiling optimism about the world and humanity. It's also to his great credit that he makes cricket out to be a remotely interesting sport.
posted by WilliamWatch at 3:27 PM
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