Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Tobias McCorkell, Transit Lounge, $29.99.
Everything In Its Right Place is a social novel featuring young antihero Ford McCullen relaying his unhappy adventurous story during the final few years of secondary school. It is a story fraught with a wide range of experiences told in a racy and uninhibited style.
It was essential for the author to have grown up in Coburg so his story could be a success. He is passionate about the place – and it comes through in this book. Not every novel needs to be set in glitzy locations like New York or London. He demonstrates how easy it is to make something small a pivot, and in literary terms he shows there’s no variance between Coburg and Brooklyn or Melbourne and Paris. Writing locally has turned out to be an imaginative and valuable experience. Being principally set in Coburg, the emphasis firmly hinges on the place. It is important for us to know where we are and why it matters.
While the characters come across as being connected, the settings play a big part in the different feelings, individual predicaments or deliberations of the character. Interaction between them in the ‘foreground and background’ is to be expected. As the novel stays more with Ford, the protagonist, it’s easy to see his mood change from setting to setting.
Everything In Its Right Place tackles themes of class, love and sexuality with humour, facts and determination. It is a story of the legacies and dilemmas that families bring, and of how we all must find our own way to gain acknowledgment.
Crumbling under the weight of his family’s expectations and realising that he just might be the only adult amongst them, Ford embarks on a quest for meaning.
