Almost Schmidty

by Gregory Pearce | ISBN 9780648371915

Martin and Schmidty, friends. The best of friends. Chatted their way through cricket, books, impossible futures, hikes, locker room debates and night wanderings. Not girls: Schmidty was hopeless at the cricket dance, the school social, the Culture Vultures’ party. They had lifetimes of it. Lifetimes.

How did they lose it? How come?

How do you lose a friendship?

“This sly story moves me at many levels. Told in the wry humour of teenage protagonist Martin Brice, Almost Schmidty explores the complexities of the human condition through the window of 1960s rural South Australia.

“After several readings my thoughts are best expressed in Martin’s own: I could not say it then, but I can say it now, that I was touched by holiness, and it was a palpable thing. It was solid and strong. Holiness was its own argument. We were rich.” Anne Bartlett, author, Knitting, (Penguin)