Comfort Zone

Lindsay Tanner

‘A decent man is pitched into a dangerous world where his strengths are tested and his weaknesses exposed.’

Robert Gott, author of The Port Fairy Murders

‘The story is an entertaining one … Behind the plot is evidence of a keen moral intelligence … Tanner shows a keen sense of life’s variety and the luck that attends to it.’

Ed Wright, Weekend Australian

‘Comfort Zone is, in many respects, a love letter to the inner-city electorate that Tanner represented … held together and sustained by a wonderful warmth and a lightness of touch.’

Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald

An astute novel about Australian racism — and about humanity prevailing over entrenched prejudice.

Jack Van Duyn is stuck in his comfort zone. A pot-bellied, round-shouldered cabbie in his mid-fifties, Jack lives alone, has few friends, and gets very little out of life. He has a negative opinion of most other people — especially refugees, bankers, politicians, and welfare bludgers.

Jack doesn’t know it, but his life is about to be turned upside down. A minor altercation in a kids’ playground at an inner-city high-rise estate catapults Jack into a whirlpool of drug-dealing, ASIO intrigue, international piracy, and criminal violence. And he can’t escape, because he doesn’t want to: he’s fallen in love with the beautiful Somali single mum who’s at the centre of it all.

The ensuing turmoil propels Jack out of his comfort zone, forcing him to confront some unpleasant truths about himself. After decades in the doldrums, can he rise to the challenge when the heat’s on?

Drawing on his many years of experience as a politician at the centre of bitter debates about refugees and multiculturalism, Lindsay Tanner explores the emotional landscape on which these issues are played out. As we follow Jack’s hair-raising journey from crisis to crisis, a powerful plea for tolerance and understanding unfolds — directed at both sides of Australia’s great cultural divide.

‘A decent man is pitched into a dangerous world where his strengths are tested and his weaknesses exposed.’

Robert Gott, author of The Port Fairy Murders

‘The story is an entertaining one … Behind the plot is evidence of a keen moral intelligence … Tanner shows a keen sense of life’s variety and the luck that attends to it.’

Ed Wright, Weekend Australian

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size:

Extent:256pp

ISBN (13):9781925321029

RRP:$29.99

Pub date:27 Jan 2016

Rights Held: World

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Lindsay Tanner

Lindsay Tanner was the minister for finance and deregulation in the Rudd–Gillard governments, and held the seat of Melbourne for the ALP from 1993 to 2010. Having retired from politics at the 2010 federal election, he is now a special adviser to Lazard Australia, and is a vice-chancellor’s fellow and adjunct professor at Victoria University. Mr Tanner is the author of several previous books, including Politics with Purpose (2012) and Sideshow (2011), also published by Scribe.