WINNER OF THE 2003 W.A PREMIER'S AWARD FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR COLIN RODERICK AWARD FOR BEST BOOK 2003 LONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN 2005 AWARD BRETT D'ARCY'S NOVEL IS ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL AND ACCOMPLISHED TO BE PUBLISHED IN AUSTRALIA FOR YEARS - Australian Book Review (May 2003) Eleven year-old "Floaty Boy" (so named because of his passion for body-surfing and peculiar talent for buoyancy) inhabits a murky, watery world of wagging school and illicit night surfing. He hovers on the edge of things; he is in between u not boy or man - and inhabits liminal spaces: the edge of the ocean when he body surfs and the edges of a family that seems to be spinning out of control. Vulnerable, Floaty Boy is as prey to his altered dream-like perceptions of the world as he is to the sharks that cruise in the other worldo of down belowo. At the centre of Floaty Boy's universe is Adelaide u mother, wife, lover intelligent, fecund and feminine, surfer, cook and breadwinner. And when her elder son Eddie disappears, her family's world threatens to fall apart u her centre may not hold and Floaty Boy has to find a way to cope. The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks is a coming of age novel of sorts, but surprisingly it is the children who seem the most mature and the father figure - Tom, the Old Mano - who needs to grow up, accept his responsibilites and find his moral centre. This is a mesmerising read u beautifully imagined - very reminiscent of Winton, Faulkner and Carson McCullers and heralds Brett D'Arcy as a major new literary voice.