Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

From the international bestselling and Booker Prize nominated author of The Slap comes a blazingly brilliant new novel.

Longlisted for the 2014 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Daniel Kelly, a talented young swimmer, has one chance to escape his working-class upbringing. His astonishing ability in the pool should drive him to fame and fortune, as well as his revenge on the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship. Everything Danny has ever done, every sacrifice his family has ever made, has been in pursuit of his dream. But when he melts down at his first big international championship and comes only fifth, he begins to destroy everything he has fought for and turn on everyone around him.

Tender and savage, Barracuda is a novel about dreams and disillusionment, friendship and family. As Daniel Kelly loses everything, he learns what it means to be a good person - and what it takes to become one.

• ISBN10: 1782392424
• ISBN13: 9781782392422
• Publish Date: 2 January 2014 (first published 1 November 2013)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 11 August 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Atlantic Books
• Edition: Main
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 528
• Language: English

Reviews

[pamela]

Oh god, what a painful slog to get through this tome of boring self indulgence. Barracuda suffers from the very Middle Class complaining that seems to be the negative focus of the narrative. While trying to point out the classist flaws inherent in Australian culture, Christos Tsiolkas instead becomes party to it.

The protagonist, Danny Kelly, had a life I could relate to. His social mileu was one I can understand, being from Melbourne myself. But this is where my sympathy ended. Danny Kelly is an abhorrent person. He has nothing which redeems him and thus I felt no sympathy for him. I wanted horrible things to happen to him because he is just a horrible, horrible person.

The positive reviews of this novel have stated that it shines a light on classism inherent in Australian culture and the issues of growing up Gay. I didn't get this from the book. The classism exists but not in this novel. Danny was so unlikeable and explosive that most of that seems his own petty hangups, and Gay relationships are painted as selfish and animalistic.

The only redeeming feature for me in this book was the sense of home I felt in Tsiolkas' descriptions of Melbourne. Unfortunately familiarity is not enough for me to rate this book particularly high.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Danny Kelly’s dream is to win Olympic gold, and he even transferred to a prestigious private school to help realise this goal. But at this school he was an outsider and was shunned by the rich boys that attend. His coach believes in him, but the rest of the swim team doesn’t and this could start affecting his confidence. Danny’s win at all costs ferocity drives him and his psychotic approach earns him respect as well as the nickname Barracuda.

Christos Tsiolkas is best known for his highly controversial, but brilliant novel The Slap. Going into this book I worried that this wasn’t going to live up to my expectations of the author but I was surprised. My prediction for a clichéd ‘overcome all odds to achieve greatness’ type novel may be right but it is also very wrong. That is the basic plot but I forgot to take into account of Tsiolkas’s ability to incredibly layer stories.

Barracuda started off tame, full of angst but tame compared to The Slap but soon I was in unfamiliar territory. Unflinching, controversial and not afraid to tread into the dark side; the kind of book that is uncomfortable to read but enjoyable to finish. The thing I love about Christos Tsiolkas, apart from the dark and brutal approach, is the profound and thought provoking story telling. He is the master of his craft.

This novel like The Slap is a great look at modern Australian life, but this one isn’t looking at parenting but instead the teenage years. Barracuda’s main focus is not about winning or chasing your dreams but for me it is all about alienation. When I was a teenager I was uprooted from all my friends in Sydney and moved to a small country town in north Queensland, where I had no friends and this novel made me relive that feeling of alienation (which I’ve never forgiven my parents for).

Tsiolkas doesn’t stop there, he likes to add layers upon layers and you spend a lot of time after reading this book just thinking about it. This for me is a sign of a great novel and I love how he dealt with alienation so effectively and then managed to look at struggles with sexual identity as well. I feel like Christos Tsiolkas is not afraid to put more and more problems for one character to deal with and it feels so real, the angst of an Australian teenager growing up in the 90’s was done to perfection.

I will admit while I loved this book, it was uncomfortable and sometimes poking at old wounds but the novel was almost a masterpiece. I did feel like it was a little long and dragged on a little at times but overall I was very pleased. Christos Tsiolkas is fast becoming my favourite Australian author and I really want to read some of his other books; maybe not The Jesus Man but Loaded sounds really good.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/11/03/book-review-barracuda/