https://kevinklehr.com/2023/01/08/book-review-johnno-david-malouf/
In Johnno, Malouf’s narrator Dante recounts meeting Johnno as schoolboys, seemingly from well-to-do, middle-class families. Dante describes Johnno as an outsider and prankster, intelligent and well-read in the classics. It was Johnno who gave Dante his lifelong nickname. As Johnno grew older, his wanderlust led him to Brisbane’s pubs and post-war brothels. Many of the places mentioned in the book—the street names and even a few pubs—are familiar to me. When I was an apprentice in the mid-1970s, near-retirement tradesmen often shared stories of the brothels and gambling dens that were once prolific in the city centre. The Brisbane of their youth for the most parts was isolated culturally and academically, it was very inwards looking and wary of those perceived as outsiders. For that generation, this lifestyle was as good as it got outside the dullness and sectarianism of those times. What sets this book apart is its bold depiction of a middle-class boy/young man stirring up trouble on Brisbane’s streets before deciding to get on a boat and head to Europe—a relatively novel concept in Brisbane literature at the time. Even into the mid-1970s, the idea of going ‘overseas’ carried an almost exotic allure.