48 Shades of Brown (1999), by Nick Earls

Think back to your final year of high school. Despite the sky-rocketing divorce and separation rates among baby-boomer couples and those impressive stats showing only 7 per cent of Australian families are ‘nuclear’ (the mum, dad and kids thing), most of us will have completed year 12 (or an equivalent) with mum or dad – or even both – setting curfews and cooking meals.

Dan, the protagonist in Nick Earls’ 1999 novel 48 Shades of Brown, won’t have these experiences. His parents have moved to Geneva, leaving the 16-year-old in Melbourne for the ‘most important year of his life’. To the delight of his best mate Chris, Dan moves in with his 22-year-old aunt Jacq and her housemate, the lovely Naomi.

Jacq and Naomi are real-life, bona fide university students, with all that entails. Messy rooms. Late nights. Watching videos with the lights turned off. Boyfriends. Sex. University parties.

But while Chris – whose idea of women is informed by pixilated internet images that respond to his every desire – is drooling over the possibilities, Dan isn’t so sure. How can he, with his school uniforms and folded socks, fit into this undergraduate world of cool detachment? And what happens when he falls in love with Naomi?

Earls has written an enjoyable, relevant book for older adolescents that strikes a similar chord to Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi. Dan is a sensitive and reflective paragon of virtue, displaying a wisdom that belies his sixteen years – one suspects his voice is Earls’, rather than his own, but this makes the story no less appealing. Dan’s character adds much to the novel’s overall restraint, one of its most attractive qualities.

Penguin has re-issued the book to coincide with the release of Daniel Lapaine’s film adaptation.