Boyhoodlum

You know those childhood memoirs that tell of the innocence of youth, of a gentle past when boys and girls were adorable and agreeable, respectful of their elders, and spoke only when spoken to? This isn’t one of those.

Boyhoodlum is the hilarious confession of an ingeniously devious and destructive boy. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Anson Cameron waged guerrilla war on his hometown in country Victoria. When he wasn’t blowing his family TV to smithereens, he was electrocuting a friend’s mother; when he wasn’t raining expletives on a genial deaf neighbour, he was raining missiles on classical music fans. And in his leisure hours, he found time to join a Wee Club, stockpiling an ocean of urine for future use.

Knowing he was destined for greatness, young Anson saw no reason to keep his self-importance to Napoleonic levels. At high school, a posse of hirsute male teachers attempted to put the errant lad in his place. But would the wonderbeards be able to quell a born entertainer and agitator?

Brilliantly evoking an era in which the Cisco Kid, Valiant Chargers, and the lethal powers of a homemade shanghai reigned supreme, Anson Cameron’s riotous memoir is a crash-