I've been requested as a requirement of my senior study to read this book for my advanced English course. As my classmates read it they told me of how good it was and how interesting which are always strange comments from high school students. It also set the bar pretty high in my expectations of how this story would eventually pan out. I didn't end up enjoying it as much as my peers did unfortunately but that may be solely due to our gaping differences in literary opinion. I absolutely adore biographies usually but this one fell kind of flat with me. I found the tone uninteresting and the lack of chronology left me confused and quite annoyed generally. The personalities where genuine and I appreciated that as they conveyed a real sense empathy in me throughout their struggles but I was often left with questions about their actions and their intentions. I think this is due to the author's consistency in giving sweeping overviews of entire situations over a great span of time which meant the details just got lost in the cracks. I understand it was intended to include all of the phases of Romulus's and Raimond's life but I didn't appreciate it ultimately.

If you said that you would come on this or that day, even though the context would have made it clear to anyone else that this was no promise, merely the declaration of your intention, he would hold you to it as though you had promised, and would sometimes call you a liar if you did not come. This was not mere cantankerousness but, as with his inability to understand self-deception, a conceptual matter.

You and me both, Romulus. This deeply caring biography of the author's father details his early years in Australia, the story of his turbulent marriage, and his fatherhood. A bittersweet read that got me in the mood for my visit to Victoria.