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The Young Desire It is a revelation: a coming-of-age novel from 1937 that deserves a place alongside the classics in this genre. It's a feverish, fascinating, and surprising look into the mind of an adolescent discovering a sense of self in his quest for love. It's also a remarkably nuanced and moving portrait of the struggles of those around him to come to terms with their own lives and longings.' -- Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club
`A book to set beside James Joyce's
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man...The best novel I've read in a long, long time...One of the great stories of first love...Why isn't this stunning novel famous?' -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *
'A hymn to youth, to life, to sexual freedom and moral independence.' -- David Malouf
'A beautifully written story of a sensitive boy's movement towards adult love.' * Sydney Morning Herald *
'Mackenzie's prose is at its most sparkling and most sensuous in this novel, and he evokes the hot Western Australian landscape with rare force...[The Young Desire It] is a pastoral charged with the awakening of desire, like spring.'
* Douglas Stewart *
'
The Young Desire It is an extraordinary novel, dazzling in its texture, wholly original in its vision, and heartbreaking in the power and freshness of the story it tells.'
-- Peter Craven * Australian Book Review *
'
The Young Desire It is one of the most brilliant, confident and unusual instances of a
Bildungsroman in Australian literature.' -- Peter Pierce * Sydney Review of Books *
'Sensitive, vital and erotic.' -- Veronica Brady * Australian Dictionary of Biography *
'
The Young Desire It reminds us there is more than a single line of descent in Australian literature...Mackenzie, who died, penniless and forgotten in his 50s, turns out to be a missing link in our literary tradition. The family tree burgeons at his return.' * Weekend Australian *
'An extremely impressive work of fiction that well deserves this reissue by Text Publishing...A novel to be welcomed back to Australian literature's available past.' * Age *
'The novel is distinguished by a rare sensitivity and an impressive ethical and psychological wisdom...its seamless narrative is able to probe the depths and ambiguities of its characters' personalities and lives.' * SMH/Canberra Times *
'The Young Desire It presents the adolescent boy's view with power and poignancy.' * The Times *
'A first novel of exceptional interest and originality.' * Spectator *
'
The Young Desire It is suffused in such rich language and evocative allusions it is surprisingly hard to put aside.' * NZ Weekend Herald *
'This intensely personal work is a beautiful ode of colonial childhood.' * Dominion Post/Weekend Press *
'The growing intimacy between the two young people unfolds subtly and with great delicacy...With the power of language, Mackenzie creates an atmosphere of intimacy that is all his own.' * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung *
