The rites of passage of two generations are enmeshed in this savagely black chronicle set in the grimy heat of small-town Tantanoula. Herald-Sun (10 August 2002).
In this story a teenage boy is set alight and burnt to death and his 14-year-old neighbour, Cheryl Jane Kiss, is determined to find out who killed him - just as soon as she stops binge-eating her way through the kitchen cupboard. The town they live in is Tantanoula and nothing is quite as it seems in this joint. Cheryl's mother has a few secrets of her own, if she ever sobers up long enough to remember them. Her stepfather, Jackson, meanwhile likes to leave dirty magazines under her mattress. The book deals with issues including depression, teen suicide, alcoholism and eating disorders, so when it's described as a black comedy, the word "black" is used advisedly. Brisbane News, (28 August 2002).
