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THE BOY FROM THE MISH

Gary Lonesborough

The Boy from the Mish is a heart-warming queer Indigenous Own Voices love story, from a startlingly talented debut author. This is contemporary YA, set in a former Aboriginal mission (the Mish) in a rural coastal Australian town, charting the hugely satisfying emotional journey of seventeen-year-old Jackson as he struggles to accept that he's gay.
It's a hot summer. Seventeen-year-old Jackson is living with his family on the Mish, hanging out with his mates, having problems with his girlfriend, teasing the visiting tourists, and avoiding the racist boys in town. As they do every year, Jackson's Aunty and annoying little cousins are visiting from the city for the summer holidays. And this time Tomas, a mysterious boy with a troubled past, has come with them. As their friendship evolves, Jackson must confront the changing shapes of his relationships with his friends, family and community. And he must face his darkest secret - a secret he thought he'd locked away for good. Compelling, honest and beautifully written, The Boy from the Mish is a about first love, identity, and the superpower of self-belief, a first novel like no other. It features a budding romance between two Aboriginal boys, has themes of self-acceptance, identity and the importance of community, and captures the experiences of growing up in a small rural Aboriginal village. It explores homophobia in First Nations Australian communities, the ongoing impacts of history, and the effects of racism and stereotyping on young First Nations people today. Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin man, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Growing up a massive Kylie Minogue and North Queensland Cowboys fan, Gary was always writing as a child, and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience working in Aboriginal health, the disability sector (including experience working in the Youth Justice System), and the film industry (including on Jasper Jones). He was Bega Valley Shire Council Young Citizen of the Year, won the Patrick White Young Indigenous Writers' Award, and has received a Copyright Agency First Nations Fellowship. The Boy from the Mish is Gary's debut YA novel.
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Published 2021-02-01 by Allen & Unwin

Comments

Honest. Funny. Beautiful. This book is all the things.

A lightning bolt to the soul. The Boy from the Mish announces a bold, necessary new talent.

I loved it! Oh my god, I loved it so much. What a tender, romantic, beautiful, hopeful, wonderful novel! Never before have I read a book where two First Nations teenage boys are given the chance to fall in love, cry, think of each other as beautiful and explore their feelings and their bodies in such an authentic and moving way. The Boy from the Mish is an extraordinary debut novel. Jackson and Tomas stole my heart, and I'll be thinking about them for a long time.

Gary Lonesborough handles the characters... with an honesty that brings them to life, telling the story with...sweetness and charm...unexpected and delightful... This heartwarming debut novel will appeal to fans of David Levithan and Becky Albertalli.

The Boy from the Mish is a powerful and searingly honest coming-of-age novel positively brimming with heart. Gary Lonesborough has deftly woven a tale that is both a raw, unflinching look at the experience of growing up gay and Aboriginal, and a sweet, truly endearing love story you just can't turn away from. This is Own Voices storytelling at its best.

Gary appeared in conversation with Benjamin Law at the recent Sydney Writers Festival. Read more...

How I wish I had this big-hearted book when I was a teenager. It would've changed my life. Let it change yours.

WINNER: 2022 IBBY Australia Ena Noël Award; 2021 Favourite Australian Debut Book ; Booktopia FAB Awards 2021 SELECTED: International Youth Library, White Raven 2022 SHORTLISTED: Book of the Year: Older Readers, CBCA Awards, 2022, AU ; Young Adult Book of the Year, Indie Book Awards, 2022, AU ; Young Adult Fiction Award, Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, 2022, AU ; Indigenous Writers' Prize, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, 2022, AU ; Indigenous Writing Prize, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, 2022, AU ; Best Designed Young Adult Cover, Australian Book Design Awards, 2022, AU ; Readings Young Adult Book Prize, 2021, AU ; Griffith University Young Adult Book Award, Queensland Literary Awards, 2021, AU HIGHLY COMMENDED: 2022 Book of the Year for Older Children, Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs)

It is, honestly, a book I've been searching for over my whole career as an editor, as well as all my years as a (queer) reader. I'm not ashamed to say that it made me cry (repeatedly) and awed me with the power of its storytelling and the way it articulated so well what it's like to be struck inarticulate by some facets of your identity, while other facets are pronouncing themselves all too clearly.

USA: Scholastic