Byron Boy by Luca Van Der Heide (Scatole Parlanti, 2020)
The young unnamed backpacker who narrates this novella is searching for an escape from routine and predictability. This quest takes him from Italy to New South Wales in Australia – all the way to Byron Bay to be precise.
The slim volume recounts three months of keeping body and soul together by doing back-breaking work as a blueberry picker. In the process he forges friendships that are destined to be fleeting since the chosen life of the traveller means that hellos are temporary and goodbyes are final. The typical questions this transient community ask one another are: What brings you here? Where have you been? Where are you heading?
What connects these fellow journey men and women is a kind of updated hippy lifestyle dream. Freedom is the constantly moving target. They may have different notions of what true liberty means but they share a common agreement that hell constitutes a comfortably numb life of ease. The author is driven by a fear of not finding independence; of feeling trapped in a vicious cycle of conventional life choices. Continue reading
