You will probably enjoy this book more if you don’t read the blurb or the quotes on the back cover. False Start: A memoir of things best forgotten is a series of interesting yarns, a few well-described locations peppered with mostly stereotypical characters, but it’s not very funny. The description primes you for a laugh-out-loud Aussie romp, and one cover quote even compares the author to Mr Bean, but there is very little in the text to support this comparison. Mark O’Flynn certainly has an interesting story to tell, one that traverses Queensland’s humid north, the Victorian countryside, the Blue Mountains and ventures halfway around the world, but Mr Bean is nowhere in sight.
So let’s look at the story for what it is, and not as it’s sold. The memoir follows Mark as a younger man; an Arts graduate, with no real career prospects, sent away from his comfortable city life to work in a harsh Queensland quarry. He paints a vivid picture of the heat, the smells, the hard work and the alcohol. This proficiency in description serves him well as he goes on to describe a Melbourne drama school, a Victorian country town, even the strange religious tourism towns of Italy. O’Flynn writes with real ease as he illustrates these places, and has a knack for glossing over huge chunks of time, whilst honing in on the interesting details.
Unfortunately, when it comes to people, the book relies mostly on stereotype: all Queenslanders are idiots, all country people are closed-minded, all actors and theatre types are hysterical tossers. Perhaps because he utilises these clichés, the audience is positioned to expect a cliché turnaround, perhaps a life lesson or two, but none emerge.
To be fair, O’Flynn does not paint his younger self in a particularly flattering light either. From his unsuccessful stint in a Queensland quarry, to his short-lived attempts at script writing in a country town, Mark is a permanent fish out of water. Incapable of fitting in, he seems to spend most of his time wallowing in his own lack of direction. While it could be argued that this negative characterisation of himself is an exercise in self-depreciating humour, unfortunately, it seems to just render the narrator unlikeable.
Thankfully, the story itself is good. O’Flynn has lived a remarkable and varied life with a wealth of experiences most people can only imagine. The broad range of these experiences means that there’ll be a story or three for everyone, but don’t expect to be shaking with laughter at every turn; it’s just not that kind of tale.
Rating: 2 ½ stars out of 5
False Start: A memoir of things best forgotten
By Mark O’Flynn
Paperback, RRP $29.99
ISBN: 9781921462894
Finch Publishing
