Reviewed by Rod McLary
As a genre, YA [or Young Adult] produces some of the most relevant and resonant writing in literature today. The genre has been around for decades – think The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger [1951] – but currently, it is more popular than ever. Generally, YA novels explore coming-of-age issues for those aged between say 12 and 18 and deal with those issues in imaginative and accessible language. But they can be equally appealing to older readers perhaps because the novels allow the older readers to safely relive their own adolescent years from the security of distance.
Barry Jonsberg in his latest book has crafted a YA narrative which is particularly relevant now given the uncertainty facing many young boys regarding what kind of man they want to be.
The protagonist of Darkest Night, Brightest Star is Morgan Pickford – thirteen years old and living with his father and older brother. The book’s title is taken from the quote the darkest night produces the brightest stars which has variously been attributed to John Green and Martin Luther King Jr among others. Morgan has a poster with these words pinned to the underside of the bunk bed above him. It offers some reassurance that one day Morgan will find his place in the world and, as he says, one day ‘I will be very good at something’. It is Morgan’s search for something to be very good at which drives this appealing narrative.
Morgan is enrolled in the local soccer club by his father – partly to make a man of him and partly to make his father rich sometime in the future. Great expectations on the shoulders of a sensitive boy without friends. That is, until he meets Gray – fourteen years old and gay. But this is not a love story; Morgan’s developing friendship with Gray shows him a way of being male different from the toxic masculinity demonstrated by Morgan’s father and older brother. Later, when Morgan meets an elderly woman in the early stages of dementia, he discovers within himself the capacity to care for and about another person.
And this is what the novel is really all about: how Morgan gradually grows towards a clearer sense of himself and what he would like to be. But it is not a smooth journey – there are roadblocks and stumbles which Morgan, with the support of caring adults and Gray, does manage to overcome.
Morgan is an engaging young protagonist and, while he like all of us has his flaws, he has not shut down his searching for the kind of person – and kind of man – he would like to become. The challenges facing Morgan are not insurmountable and this is one of the key messages of the novel – that, with the support of the right adults and friends, they can be overcome.
Darkest Night, Brightest Star can comfortably take its place in the YA genre alongside the best. Well recommended to all those young adults who enjoy reading about their cohort – and those older readers who enjoy literature.
Darkest Night, Brightest Star
[2025]
by Barry Jonsberg
Allan and Unwin
ISBN 978 1761 180385
$19.99; 288pp