PublishedViking, January 2015 |
ISBN9780670077823 |
FormatSoftcover, 320 pages |
Dimensions23.4cm × 15.5cm × 2.6cm |
Sullivan Moss is useless. Once a charming underachiever, he's now such a loser that he can't even commit suicide properly. Waking up in hospital after falling the wrong way on a rooftop, he comes to a decision. He shouldn't waste perfectly good organs just because they're attached to his head.
After a life of regrets, Sully wants to do one useful thing: he wants to donate a kidney to a stranger. As he scrambles over the hurdles to become a donor, Sully almost accidentally forges a new life for himself. Sober and employed, he makes new friends, not least radio producer Natalie and her son Louis, and begins to patch things up with old ones, like his ex-best mate Tim. Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of him. But altruism is not as easy as it seems. Just when he thinks he's got himself together, Sully discovers that he's most at risk of falling apart. From the creator of Offspring comes a smart, moving and wry portrait of one man's desire to give something of himself.
'With characteristic charm, wit and humanity, Debra Oswald has crafted an irresistible story of metamorphosis, as Sullivan Moss evolves from a self-described bag of spare parts to something altogether more whole - and way more complicated. As Sullivan opts in to the mess that is life, Oswald makes the most of every twist and turn, while also finding room for poignancy, insightfulness and the ups and downs that are part of being human.' Nick Earls 'I don't know when I have had the absolute pleasure of immersing myself in a novel as rich and rewarding as Useful. With gimlet eye and boundless heart, Debra Oswald pulls together the threads of disparate lives, including an old dog, a suicidal loser, a narcissistic movie star and a crew of Khmer asbestos removers. Their fates entwine in a plot that is by turns dark and light, brimming with insight, mesmerising, and above all, true. This novel is more than useful, it's absolutely essential.' Geraldine Brooks
Barbara is an award-winning bookseller who has a special interest in fiction, especially Australian fiction and children’s books for all ages.
Award winning author Debra Oswald is the writer for the popular TV series Offspring and has written 12 plays and nine children’s novels. Useful is her first adult novel. The main character Sullivan Moss is considered useless by people who know him and he feels he is a useless human being as well. When we are introduced to Sullivan he’s homeless, unemployed and overweight and he’s decided to jump off a building. He can’t even complete this deed and ends up in hospital with minor physical damage to himself. He has a crazy idea to make his life worthwhile, he decides to donate a kidney to a stranger. Sullivan is not the kind of main character you feel you could follow with enthusiasm, yet Debra’s skill at developing characters and word pictures soon has you engrossed following Sullivan’s progress to meet his strange goal. The string of diverse and interesting characters you meet along the journey ensure that at times you inwardly laugh and at other times you have a lump in your throat. If you enjoyed The Rosie Project, then Useful is definitely a novel you should read.
