Bluebird
I read Malcolm Knox’s Bluebird quite slowly. Reading slowly was partly because it is a big book (485 pages) and – if I am being honest – 2022 seemed to be a tough year and I was often nodding off quickly when I read in the evenings. Let’s say that this is more of a Gates problem than a Knox one. The book is set in a beachside suburb called Bluebird Beach. It’s near to Ocean City, but far away enough to be able to see its smoggy horizon. Bluebird is “OC’s last secret, the land that public transport forgot” (p.4). Geographically it doesn’t really work with actual Sydney suburbs, but it feels like Palm Beach, perhaps located across Broken Bay about where Killcare sits. The Bluebird folk are down-to-earth types but every house in the suburb is suddenly worth a bomb, and this means change is in the air, and Gordon (our main guy) isn’t happy. He lives is The Lodge, and he sees it as his "mission" to preserve its integrity: The community, like the newspaper and the old Bluebi