One Would Think The Deep

Claire Zorn's third YA novel, One Would Think The Deep, won the CBCA Older Readers Book of the Year last year, and I can see why. Wow. Zorn's writing is amazing -- clear and powerful, unpretentious but resonant, a perfect voice for young adult writing.

But jeez, it's bleak stuff. As the book opens, Sam's mum has just died suddenly. The only relative he can contact is his estranged aunt Lorraine, who grudgingly accepts him into her chaotic household with his two older cousins, hostile Shane and bouncy Minty, who is an extraordinary surfer. The surfing scenes in this book are the best I've read. Sam is smart and sensitive (he adores Jeff Buckley's music), but he's also self-destructive. When the black hole inside threatens to overwhelm him, he looks for someone to fight. Will Sam destroy his tentative relationship with Gretchen, possibly the best thing that's ever happened to him? And will he find out what blew his once close family apart?

Set in 1997, the music of the nineties is threaded through the book. Tumbleweed, Shihad, Jeff Buckley, Chili Peppers, Tori Amos -- these were all the artists who were around when I was working in the music industry and the book brought back some powerful memories. I can also well remember the wave of shock and grief that rippled through us all when Jeff Buckley died -- followed by the unseemly scramble to package up and market every scrap of music he had ever recorded. Lucky Sam didn't really just how tawdry the music business could be, or he'd be even more cynical.