Rocks in the Belly
a novel
Jon Bauer
‘Blown away. Disturbing, intense, great psychological insight, brilliant inhabiting of the characters, both then and now. Moving but not sentimental. Dark and affecting. Great sense of foreboding throughout. Also loved the unreliable narrator — the constant uncertainty, having to read between …the lines to judge the gap between perception and reality, which is never entirely resolved for you. Impressive that I empathised so strongly with and felt connected to a character who was so often deeply unlikeable.’
Jo Case, Editor of Readings Monthly and Books Editor of The Big Issue
How far can you push a child?
Rocks in the Belly follows a precocious eight-year-old boy and the volatile adult he becomes. During childhood his mother fosters boys despite the jealous turmoil it arouses in her son. Jealousy that reaches unmanageable proportions when she fosters Robert, and triggers an event that profoundly changes everyone. Especially Robert.
At twenty-eight the son returns to face his mother. He hasn’t forgiven her for what happened. But now she’s the dependent one and he the dominant force — a power he can’t help but abuse.
Reviews
‘Rocks in the Belly is indeed a really notable and distinguished debut — in many places most affecting, extraordinarily well thought-out and structured, dark and at times disturbing — I read this book with complete fascination.’
Martin Shaw, Books Division Manager, Readings Books & Music
‘This is compelling reading, and provides great scope for discussions about the nature of good, evil and love. The narrative voices are superb, as is the characterisation; 'damaged Robert’, in particular, and the loving, disintegrating father, are sometimes so realistic as to be almost painful…Rocks in the Belly is a beautiful and profoundly disturbing novel. It presents a dark world filled with toxic emotions that many of us choose to ignore. But it’s a world well worth entering.'
Good Reading
» All reviews for this title‘Kept me pinned to the page’
Brenda Walker, The Age
