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 Click
here for Neil's web site
In Transactions, his first solo collection of short stories,
Boyack writes with penetration and revelation, finding the profound
in the everyday.
Modelling
his work on the literary giants, Lawson and White, Boyack looks
to the simplicities of everyday relationships for the meat of
his stories and discovers special symbolism in the simplest
gesture or mannerism.
The
single discarded shoe on the roadside becomes a symbol of social
decay and dysfunction in Boyack’s sometimes bleak vision.
Trips to the beach and days spent drinking are loaded with betrayal,
menace and violence in the places his characters inhabit. Human
relationships are mixtures of love and hate but are always illuminated
by Boyack’s shafts of light and hope.
What
the critics say:
NEIL
Boyack is proudly Australian with a deep understanding of
our unique landscapes and people as is highlighted in his
collection of short stories transactions. These short stories
all leave you wanting more, a delicious mouthful and then
you want to go on eating forever. Boyack copies no style but
follows his own refreshing and unique direction. More of his
material, yes please! Paul Stewart, Sunday Herald Sun
Fiercely
attentive to the resonances of the everyday, Boyack writes about
interludes, epiphanies, brief encounters, daily mysteries and
bleak revelations, with a strong sense of the elusive nature
of intimacy and certainty. Philippa Hawker, the Age
Like
Patrick White, Neil Boyack is primarily concerned with the
intricacies of human interaction and his closely observed
worlds are similarly absorbing. But where White's figures
were often vehicles for an overarching metaphysical vision,
it is the individual and distinct nature of Boyack's characters
that convinces and intrigues us. Nathan Hollier, editor
Overland
Boyack
is a deep observer of ordinary people and ordinary lives. He
is a master of landscapes — housing estates, the outback,
suburban bars and heatwaves. His stories are both melancholic
and kind. They remind me of Lawson. Michael Hyde
Click
here for Neil's web site
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