The Life - Malcolm Knox

I bought ‘The Life’ a few weeks before a holiday and tried to save it for the trip but just couldn’t help myself. I was over halfway through by the time I boarded the plane.

I have a thing with books (well, a few things really) – if I hear a recommendation I’ll dive straight in not bothering to read the blurb. Ironic really as I wrote blurbs for about 10 years as a book editor.

So I started reading The Life only knowing it was about surfing on the Goldie in the golden age of the 60s.

When really it’s a fictional take on MP… even my very basic knowledge of the history of Australian surfing figured that out. Hell, the main protagonist went by his initials as well - DK.

Even though it was really bugging me I tried to stick to my guns when I was reading and not do any research on the book. But curiosity got the better of me and I ended up reading this article.

Malcolm Knox says that it would be difficult to write a book about surfing in the 60s and 70s and not refer to MP – like writing about the ‘discovery’ of Australia and not mentioning Captain Cook - but to me the book sticks so closely to what I know of MP’s life it was tricky not to start thinking it was ‘faction’ not ‘fiction’ (excluding the ending, of course).

MP with his Moon Rocket

It also got me thinking about what I had started (and have since abandoned to spend time surfing not studying on the weekends) my masters research on – the unwritten contract of always telling the truth between an author and reader when writing biography and the betrayal a reader feels when that trust is broken (A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, for example). In ‘The Life’ it was sort of the same theory but applied to fiction – why hadn’t Malcolm acknowledged how closely he was following MP’s life? It seems a bit weird to me and I still haven't figured it out.

Nevertheless, it’s an amazing read – up there with Tim Winton’s ‘Breath’. I’m always a sucker for Australian novels about broken men ... and surfing. Tugs at me heart strings every time, I tells ya.

(I was also stoked to find out that like me Malcolm Knox didn’t start surfing until his mid-30s.)