The Young Desire It was awarded the ALS Gold Medal in 1937, when the author was only 24. This extraordinary book, like many first novels, is largely autobiographical – the defining years of protagonist Charles Fox are simply crafted in terms of plot and structure (this is a coming-of-age story, set in an all-male boarding school in 1920s rural Western Australia) – but Kenneth Mackenzie’s apprenticeship novel is astonishing in terms of characterisation, language, its depiction of the natural world and, especially, in terms of a felt or lived narrative.

The third-person narrator’s voice has – for the most part – been assimilated into Charles’s viewpoint. As he has lived his first 14 years in the sole company of his mother, free to roam the property, Charles has developed into a sensitive young man attune to the caprices of the natural landscape. This voice, then, with its deeply interior perspective, leads us, poetically and astoundingly, deeper into the experience: of growing up, of sexual awakening, of the natural world, of fear and of knowledge.

The language throughout is extraordinary. It’s not an entirely easy read: the tone and pace is unmodulated, with no markers to identify perspective changes or highlight plot points. But the result is a rolling swell of remarkable turns of phrase, odd constructions, unusual language, and a narrative that builds upon itself until the prose experience engulfs you.

The Young Desire It will ask you – many times – to pause in your reading. Innumerable passages stand out and ask something (a step sideways, an interior movement, another read). My personal favourite: ‘And the gates swallowed them, like the blind open jaws of a dead shark, sinister and smally cathedraline.’

If words, cadence and language are your thing, read this book – Mackenzie has rendered it an astonishing experience.

Ed Moreno