''Golden Boys'' (2014) is a novel by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n author

Sonya Hartnett Sonya Louise Hartnett (born 1968) is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adult literat ...

. It has been shortlisted for the 2015

Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–195 ...

Themes

''Golden Boys'' is a novel of lost childhood innocence, and the loss of societal patterns of behaviour that allowed young children to roam the streets in the late 70s and early 80s. The novel tells the story of two twelve-year-olds, Colt Jenson and Freya Kiley, who are moving out of childhood as they realise that their families have dark secrets.

Reviews

Linda Funnell in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' found the novel considers many "sombre themes" but is "saturated in a suburban landscape of decades past, where boys ride bicycles through silent streets, play pinball machines at the local milk bar, and hang out in the mouth of the huge stormwater drain beside a patch of waste ground, untroubled by mobile phones or the internet." Victoria Flanagan in ''

Sydney Review of Books The ''Sydney Review of Books'' is an online literary magazine established in 2013. According to the journal's editor James Ley it was created to address shortcomings in Australian book reviews. Awards In 2019 SRB contributor Fiona Kelly McGr ...

'' noted that the author "has a talent for writing about difficult or contentious subjects in innovative and sensitive ways"."Not for Children", ''Sydney Review of Books'', 10 October 2014
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Awards and nominations

* 2015 shortlisted

* 2015 winner Indie Awards — Fiction * 2015 longlisted the

Stella Prize The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys W ...

* 2015 longlisted ASAL Awards —

ALS Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Golden Boys 2014 Australian novels Penguin Books books