Monday, February 21, 2011

Boner McPharlin’s Moll

I recently discovered a short story by Tim Winton that blew my socks off. Boner McPharlin’s Moll has the heightened reality and menace of a Flannery O’Connor story, with Winton’s graceful touch. I discovered it in The Australian Long Story, (ed Mandy Sayer, Hamish Hamilton 2009), but it was originally published in The Turning, 2005.
The narrator is a fifteen-year-old girl, Jackie, who gets off with the local bad boy, Boner. He’s been expelled from her high school in a country town. The year is 1970, down to a T, with the boys in their Monaros and Chargers, wearing Levi cords and Dr Scholls. Johnny Farnham is out and David Bowie is in. Jackie accepts a ride in Boner’s car, and from then on their fates unravel.
Jackie has a reputation as Boner McPharlin’s moll, but the reader knows more than her schoolmates about what is really going on. This is a story about innocence and betrayal, about truth and deception. It is moving, harrowing even, and reveals how our actions, however innocent, have consequences. It moves forward on recurring motifs - Boner’s Johnny Reb boots, and his earrings - and springs to life in offhand, deadbeat dialogue. In the last page or two, the mystery lifts and we glimpse the truth. It’s like a punch in the guts for Jackie, and left me reeling.
Unlike most stories, this one is unforgettable. Read it!

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