Robin Sheiner's second novel glories in the chaos of the raw society of Australia's fifties. The age of the fridge and the F. J. Holden, new ugly suburbs and paling fences, swing bands and laminex. The narrator is a teenage girl, one of the new Australians. She watches as the brew boils but although the ingredients of the cauldron are incredibly volatile they never quite explode. A demonstration in the local park fizzles out in a rain storm. What are we left with: a let down or life? (Publisher's blurb, back cover).
