Mattinson has worked as a sporting journalist and a wine writer and these occupations feed into We Were Not Men, an early draft of which won an Australian Best Sports Writing Award. It is a novel whose roots plunge deep into Mattinson's life.
As orphans, Jon and Eden come under the care of their step-grandmother, Bobbie, a former stockbroker, now living on a 16-acre bush block outside Melbourne. Her husband, the boys' Grandpa Jack, has been dead only a year and she has begun drinking too much. Her line of swift wisecracks conceals a life that has broken apart. She is also facing becoming a parent to two youngsters with minds of their own.
For Jon and Eden, swimming suddenly becomes more than an activity – or even a sport. It connects them to their former life, particularly their mother, who was herself a swimmer. They can also compete with each other and find support in an activity that offers speed, weightlessness, and escape.
Mattinson carefully recreates the world of Bobbie's bush block, the swimming creek, and a suburban river by a power station outfall – "the Warmies" – where they train more intensively. He then adds the engaging young Carmelina, with whom both brothers fall in love. They must deal with a first betrayal that sets in motion much of the story.
We Were Not Men is a novel about the accommodations made on the way to adulthood. Its dream-bright Australia is memorable and its speech enjoyably colloquial. The story it tells is satisfyingly human.
Reviewed by David Herkt
