Everything in its Right Place

Coburg, Melbourne. Ford McCullen is growing up with his mother Deidre and his Pop and Noonie in 'The Compound', a pair of units in the shadow of Pentridge prison. His father, Robert, has left them to live in the bush with his new male partner. Nobody is coping. When Ford's paternal grandmother Queenie's good fortune allows him to attend a prestigious Catholic private school on the other side of the river and to learn the violin, Ford finds himself balancing separate identities. At school he sees himself being moulded into an image that is not his own, something at odds with the rough and tumble of his beloved north.

Crumbling under the weight of his family's expectations and realising that he just might be the only adult amongst them, Ford embarks on a quest for meaning while navigating the uncomfortable realities of his father's life, his mother's ongoing crisis, and the pillars of football and religion, delving ever deeper into a fraught search for the source of the 'McCullen curse'. Everything in its Right Place tackles themes of class, love and sexuality with humour, truth and grit. It is a story of the legacies and dilemmas that families bring, of how we all must find our own way, astonishingly told.

Author Tobias McCorkell spent the first 25 years of his life in Coburg. He has taught creative writing at the University of Melbourne and has authored works of non-fiction. In 2018 he appeared at the Melbourne Emerging Writer's Festival. He is the recipient of a 2019 Varuna Residency Fellowship. Everything in its Right Place is his first novel.

Everything in its Right Place

Tobias McCorkell

Transit Lounge

RRP: $29.99