My Private Pectus

Shane Thamm (author)

Stephen Pease (reader)

Louis Braille Audio, 2010: 5CDs

ISBN: 9781742124674

Genres: audio, realistic fiction

Issues: bullying, identity, adolescence, body image, choices

‘There's something different about my body. It's like the missing hole in a jigsaw puzzle your eyes keep going back to. If I were to take off my shirt you wouldn't see my face, freckles or ratty hair. All you'd see is the crevice in the middle of my chest.'

‘Sticks' as his mates call him, iss raised by his father, a former army captain who now suffers crippling migraines due to a spinal injury. Their relationship is tense, as his father attempts to live his lost dreams through his son.

Jack hates football - his father loves it and coaches the school team. His father is convinced Jack will, like him, go into the army, refusing to listen when his son tries to express his own desires. A heavy drinker, Jack's father is frequently verbally abusive and humiliates him in front of visitors. His only concern about his son's physical problems is whether they'll interfere with his admission to the army. Jack wonders whether he'll ever get to be himself - if he works out who that is - and have a life. And whether he'll ever find a girl who will be able to ignore the hole in his chest.

A story about teenage boys and their concerns, rites of passage and ways of relating to their families and each other, My Private Pectus is an exploration of the complex issues of adolescence for males. Issues which are often experienced in silence and without support - sexual identity and experience, peer pressure, body image, relating to girls, gender-related expectations (football, drinking, drugs, risk-taking, driving etc). There are many novels that express the pains of growing up from the female perspective but very few that explore ‘boy stuff' in a similar way. Shane Thamm seems to be trying to fill what is not so much a gap as a gulf in teen literature. Thamm's boys are varied characters, as you would find in any high school. He allows them to be themselves and shows that adolescence itself should not be stereotyped.

As it's narrated from Jack's perspective, Stephen Pease (reader) literally gives Sticks a voice. With careful manipulation of pacing, pitch and tone Pease creates the other significant characters and allows the reader to become immersed in Jack's boy-filled world. New tracks every three minutes and for every new chapter allow for easy bookmarking. Highly recommended.

Warning: sexual references, drinking, drug use