Meatloaf in Manhattan

PRAISE FOR ROBERT POWER

IN SEARCH OF THE BLUE TIGER

‘Between
Life of Pi, Under Milkwood
and Gus Kuijer's disturbing children's novel,
The Book of Everything …
The writing is subtle, connotative and composed. Its craftsmanship embraces and extends this audacious depiction of an escape from childhood.'

Joy Lawn
Bookseller+Publisher

‘Robert Power's striking debut novel works less with the idea of childhood innocence, than with it burdening and fracturing by violence … While Oscar's experiences circle around violence, his focus is on hope, largely embodied by Mrs April. Psychologically astute, original and whimsical, the novel creates a memorable protagonist and sees him set sail, eventually, powered by dreams and resilience. Fantasy and a quest for alternative worlds are symptomatic of trauma, but also, ultimately, the means of Oscar's self-made redemption.'

Felicity Plunkett,
Canberra Times

‘Rich with observation and fine writing.'

Lucy Sussex
The Sunday Age

‘Power's skill as a writer is to allow us insight into Oscar's hopeful magic-realist view of the world, even while we are travelling through this dark terrain of trauma.'

Pip Newling
The Big Issue

‘This dark and beautiful tale, told with a light touch, stayed in my mind long after I'd finished … The prose is lucid, poetic and is one of the story's pleasures. The ending is both unpredictable and provocative.'

Claire Kennedy
Herald Sun

THE SWAN SONG OF DOCTOR MALLOY

‘artfully paced and suspenseful … the writing is energised by realistic detail: the psychology of the characters, the geopolitics and social mores ground the novel and keep the pages turning.'

Cameron Woodhead,
The Age

‘Eminently readable. The author writes with great empathy about the highs and utter depths to which drink-fuelled sprees take Malloy and the subsequent shame and humiliation.'

Jennifer Somerville,
Good Reading

‘Beautiful and tender moments … lasting imagery … really resonates with me.'

Jon Faine, Conversation Hour, ABC 774

‘Power is an assured storyteller, and the novel is taut and compelling … Power's insight into addiction is remarkable and works brilliantly as the running thread of the narrative.'

Crusader Hillis,
Australian Book Review

‘Another finely calibrated novel … Here is protagonist Anthony Malloy amid the little known world of pharmaceutical research, dealing with the uses and abuses that spring from the very real ability to change lives that comes from specialised medical knowledge. Malloy is driven yet conflicted - as issues of contemporary drug use and preventative medical strategies are played out he develops as a flesh and blood, vulnerable, anxious man, with a failing marriage, a complex child and troubled siblings. Power takes us, and Malloy, from London to south-east Asia, the USA and South America – a kind of Lonely Planet journey through drug and disease hotspots, without the voyeurism.'

William Charles,
The Melbourne Review

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

www.transitlounge.com.au

Copyright © Robert Power 2014

First Published 2014
Transit Lounge Publishing

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study,
research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be
reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to
the publisher.

Front cover image: Max Ferguson/Bridgeman Art Library
Cover and book design: Peter Lo

Printed in China by Everbest

This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia
Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

A cataloguing-in-publication entry is available from the
National Library of Australia:
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

E-ISBN 9781921924651

With love, as always,

to my three sons
Tom, Dominic & Louis

CONTENTS

Firenze & Snowball

Meatloaf in Manhattan

She Calls Her Boy Amazing

The Visit

The Story of Little-Path and Marcus Kellogg

The General and the Billiard Cue

The I Zingari Cap

Synge's Chair

Zorro the Chess Master

The Shoe Lovers

Lemon Juice and Snakebite

Monsignor Di Vincente & The Heartmaker

The Postman Gets a Letter

The Mayor's Fear of the Penalty

Grooming

Buffalo Bill and the Psychiatrist

FIRENZE & SNOWBALL

‘It's the most beautiful of songs,' says Snowball. But wouldn't he just. He's so quietly in tune with me. But he's right. It's quite lovely and haunting. Almost special.

‘You think so?' I ask him. ‘Why?'

‘It sucks you in. It gets into your head and under your skin,' he adds, without looking up from his laptop.

‘Let's hope the record company thinks so,' I say.

‘Don't let them think,' the screen on his computer bright and animated in the darkness of my bedroom. ‘Look,' he says, pulling up a new window, ‘remember I told you about Alterlife. That's where you should launch it. You don't need a record company sucking on your blood.'

Snowball is a computer nerd. Just like I'm a songwriter Goth. He's yin and I'm yang and we're each other's best friends. No sex. No complications. Just happy. We feed each other's dreams. I want to be Edith Piaf meets Lady Gaga and he wants to be the next Donky Kong world champion. He's been obsessed with the game since he was knee-high. Every spare moment he's the big monkey chasing around the screen, picking up points, avoiding stuff. That's his thing. Playing computer games and exploring the depths of the Web are what Snowball does. He's called Snowball because he's so white on account of being indoors so much with his head in a computer. He told me about Alterlife some time back. An anonymous website that had hit big. A bit like the rave parties of the last century, it had started small and cool and obscure. Only those in the know knew how to locate it. But recently it's been getting a lot of publicity here in the real world. Its original avatars were punks and poets. It still has a bohemian edge, despite the businessmen from Manhattan and Stepford wives from Idaho who've joined up. Swingers in a new playground. Only last month a best-selling novelist launched his new book in Alterlife. His avatar, Litrick, set up a literary agency and held a launch party at one of Alterlife's virtual beaches.

‘Forget the record companies,' says Snowball, ‘release your song in Alterlife. They have clubs and venues where you can sing for free once you join up.'

So while I cook some scrambled eggs on rye toast, Snowball makes me an avatar.

‘Give her a name,' he says, adding some long blue hair and luscious eyelashes.

It comes to me in a flash. ‘Firenze, after Florence,' I say. I love the Italian city. The romance of the place, even though I've never been there. One of my dreams is to be standing in front of Botticelli's
Birth of Venus
in the Uffizi gallery. I keep a poster of the painting above my bed and use Venus postcards as bookmarks. She is so voluptuous, and there's something about the huge seashell, the flowers and the way her hair flows around her body that's inspired me since I was a little girl.

The next day Snowball is flicking through websites, searching as always, a fisherman never quite sure of what might come up at the end of the line. I'm sitting on the floor plucking on my guitar, the one my dad left behind.

‘There,' he says, proud of his catch. ‘I've found you a gig in Alterlife. Next Thursday. You enter your song online and if the jury likes it, you're on.'