By the Line

Schoolboy narrator Daniel Jordan, growing up in working-class Sydney during the Second World War, is confused by a world in which the religious dogma of his school conflicts with the communism of his family''s terrifying neighbour, the ''Comrade''. Refreshingly unsentimental, this is the funny, ultimately tragic story of a boy struggling to understand a world in which concepts like innocence and guilt, good and evil are clearly open to interpretation.