Shortlisted for the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award
He shouldn’t have a life he never asked for and be expected to love men. With their problems never spoken outward. And childhood trauma and family issues. Men wanting to be held or hold.
Markus Bello’s life has stalled. Living in a small country town, mourning the death of his best friend, Grayson, Markus is isolated and adrift. As time passes, and life continues around him, Markus must try to face his grief, and come to terms with what is left.
Stylistically assured and quietly compelling, Ironbark is an elliptical and beautifully evoked contemporary coming-of-age story. Through his protagonist, Markus, newcomer Jay Carmichael depicts the conflict and confusion of life as a gay man in rural Australia, and explores how place can shape personal identity by both offering and restricting potential. A moving portrait of grief and loss, Ironbark is also a devastating account of the toll exacted by our society’s expectations of what it means to be a man.
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Ironbark
Shortlisted for the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award
He shouldn’t have a life he never asked for and be expected to love men. With their problems never spoken outward. And childhood trauma and family issues. Men wanting to be held or hold.
Markus Bello’s life has stalled. Living in a small country town, mourning the death of his best friend, Grayson, Markus is isolated and adrift. As time passes, and life continues around him, Markus must try to face his grief, and come to terms with what is left.
Stylistically assured and quietly compelling, Ironbark is an elliptical and beautifully evoked contemporary coming-of-age story. Through his protagonist, Markus, newcomer Jay Carmichael depicts the conflict and confusion of life as a gay man in rural Australia, and explores how place can shape personal identity by both offering and restricting potential. A moving portrait of grief and loss, Ironbark is also a devastating account of the toll exacted by our society’s expectations of what it means to be a man.
Shortlisted for the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award
He shouldn’t have a life he never asked for and be expected to love men. With their problems never spoken outward. And childhood trauma and family issues. Men wanting to be held or hold.
Markus Bello’s life has stalled. Living in a small country town, mourning the death of his best friend, Grayson, Markus is isolated and adrift. As time passes, and life continues around him, Markus must try to face his grief, and come to terms with what is left.
Stylistically assured and quietly compelling, Ironbark is an elliptical and beautifully evoked contemporary coming-of-age story. Through his protagonist, Markus, newcomer Jay Carmichael depicts the conflict and confusion of life as a gay man in rural Australia, and explores how place can shape personal identity by both offering and restricting potential. A moving portrait of grief and loss, Ironbark is also a devastating account of the toll exacted by our society’s expectations of what it means to be a man.
Jay Carmichael is a writer and editor whose first novel, Ironbark, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2019, and whose writing has been published by Beyond Blue and appeared widely in print and online, including in Overland, The Guardian, SBS, and The Telling Tree project. Jay lives and works in Melbourne.
Reading Group Guide
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Does/will Markus leave Narioka? Why or why not?
Discuss the absence of mothers in the novel. How does this relate to Markus, if at all?
The novel is structurally complex each section moves forward but also brings you, the reader, back in time (except for the fourth section). How did this affect your reading?
What is the symbolism of the ironbark tree to Markus and to the novel?
Consider the characters Elmyra and Elba, who have both created different identities for themselves. How are they similar/different? And what are they saying about Markus’s situation?
The only ‘queer’ reference Markus has is Georges, who travels back to Narioka twice once after Grayson’s death, and once more, three years later, for his art show. What do you think Georges represents to Markus? And how does Markus react?
How does the landscape impact on the characters?
Does Ironbark fall in the tradition of queer tragedy or is it ultimately hopeful?
Markus hates that of all the rules he tries to live by, this one, believing in the inherent goodness in people, is the one he cannot break. How is this concept relevant/irrelevant to each of the characters in Ironbark?
Discuss what might be different in the novel if Markus was opposite-sex attracted (i.e. if he was attracted to females rather than males).