Part coming of age story and part exploration of the maddening nature of dreams, Girls Like Funny Boys is a potent mix of sexual obsession, guilt and fame.
''Gina crouched, resting on her haunches to continue the conversation. Her legs were too far apart. There was a hole in her black tights just above the left knee. Johnny felt a hot urge to poke a finger in it. He wished she'd leave him alone. He wished she wasn't wearing tights. He stared at her lopsided mouth and the way her fat lower lip jutted out. It was so red it bordered on purple, the colour of strawberries on the turn.''
Meet Johnny Goodwin.
He's grown up in a quiet Brisbane suburb with loving parents, a faithful dog and an unrequited yearning for his teenage sweetheart, Angie Everson.
Now in his last year at school, he's finally caught her eye by starring in a teacher-baiting pantomime. Dreams are already taking shape of a career in entertainment, perhaps with Angie by his side.
And all he's got to do is pass his exams, get to uni and keep away from Gina Wood, that weird girl who once let him touch her...
Length: 115,000 words
"Girls Like Funny Boys wasn't what I expected - and that's simply not fair as Dave Franklin's not meant to be writing to a formula. But I really didn't expect to find this as engaging, as involving and quite as emotional as I did. I loved Johnny, rode the waves of his life every step of the way. I laughed out loud at points in this book, and found myself sniffing back tears at others... Most of all I just loved this book." - Australian Crime Fiction
About the Author: Born in Wales, Dave Franklin published his first story in a national fishing magazine at the age of sixteen. He emigrated to Australia in 1999 and made his living as a reporter, earning the distinction of being sacked twice by the same Perth-based newspaper group. He then spent nearly three years teaching English in Korea, during which the mortality rate of the children under his care remained at an impressive zero. He now teaches ESL to adults in Brisbane, helping (among others) Thai Lady Boys get to grips with their past participles.
The major theme of Dave's small, character-driven stories is alienation, the symptoms of which include male immaturity, misogyny, dysfunction, violence, xenophobia, religious conflict, self-destruction and a childish glee in winding up the politically correct. There are no car chases or explosions in his books; instead he prefers outlandish sex scenes while focusing on exasperated loners full of doubt.
People who like his work tend to see its humour (and disdain for his own characters) whereas his harshest critics take everything at face value. Indeed, some observers would argue that the highlight of his writing career, which has seen him produce twelve books, remains being published in a fishing magazine.
