A Barracuda on the attack
SWIMMER’S TALE an enthralling journey of escape and redemption, even if a little heavy-handed at times
“He was the strongest, the fastest, the best.” These words are repeated like a mantra in Christos Tsiolkas’s new novel Barracuda. Barracuda is the nickname the other boys at a posh Australian private school give Danny Kelly. Danny’s working-class parents could never afford to send him to the school. He’s there on scholarship because of his swimming — and his singleminded desire to come in first.
Tsiolkas lives in Melbourne, Australia. This is his fifth novel; his fourth, The Slap, won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was longlisted for the 2010 Booker. Tsiolkas understands that stories about failure are far more compelling than ones about victory. That’s why he does not allow his protagonist to make it to the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. Barracuda is a novel about what can happen to us when our dreams fail to come true and when it feels as if there is nothing left to hope for. Though this novel has its flaws — it lacks subtlety, occasionally teetering on the brink of melodrama — Barracuda still makes for an enthralling read.
For most of this novel, Danny is difficult to like. When he’s winning, he’s cocky and self-absorbed, unappreciative of the sacrifices his family — especially his mother — makes to accommodate his swimming. When he loses, he’s even worse, descending into a rage that will earn him another nickname at school: Psycho Kelly.
The narration shifts from first to third person, and from the present, where Danny is 30 and has served prison time for a violent crime, to the past, when he was a teenage competitive swimmer. These shifts allow Tsiolkas to explore the complex theme of identity and how, despite the passage of time, our pasts remain an intrinsic part of who we are.
Danny’s own struggle to know himself is reflected in the various names he goes by. There are the two nicknames at school. In the present, he insists on being called Dan; his family and oldest friends call him Danny; after he places first at the Australian Swimming Championships, he tells a reporter his name is Daniel; his swimming coach calls him Kelly.
From the moment he turns up at private school, Danny is aware he does not belong: “The other guys all knew each other; they had been destined to be friends from the time they were embryos in their mothers’ wombs.” When he is invited to the other boys’ homes, he feels ashamed of his family’s humble circumstances.
Danny is also confused about his sexuality, unable to make sense of his attraction to a classmate — and to the classmate’s elegant older sister.
It’s only in the water that Danny finds some peace: “then it came, the sense that he was no longer conscious of the individual parts of his body ... the stillness came, and he was the water.” But when Danny stops winning, his fragile sense of self implodes and he gives up swimming altogether. And then, in order to distinguish himself at school and to prevent the other boys from ridiculing or pitying him, Danny becomes the worst kind of bully, terrorizing the younger boys: “Dan’s shoulder sent the boy spinning against the lockers. Everyone looked up at the sound of the boy slamming into the metal, at his howl of pain. Dan didn’t look back.”
It isn’t until late in the book that the crime that landed Danny in prison is revealed. But it is in prison that Danny finally begins to come to terms with who he is and who he can still become. A brutal, but passionate relationship with another inmate confirms for Danny that he is gay. It’s also in the prison library that Danny discovers another escape that will be, for him, almost as good as swimming: reading.
Tsiolkas spins a good story, but Barracuda could be more subtle. The references to identity feel heavy-handed, and several scenes, including one where Danny catches the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics on TV, would be more effective if they were toned down.
Danny has a lot of amends to make — to his friends, family, and to the man he nearly killed. After a series of dead-end jobs, Danny finds work as an aide to men who have had severe brain damage.
Just as these men need to learn to speak and move again, Danny, too, must find a way to start over, to make things right. He begins to understand that there is life after defeat, “that everything could be relearned … it could be taught and it could be learned, how to navigate the world again.”
Monique Polak is the author of 15 novels for young adults. Her latest YA novel, Straight Punch, was released last month by Orca Book Publishers.