Billy's Tree

Nicholas Kyriacos

Here is a distinctly Australian novel from a talented and original storyteller. Set in the working-class suburb of Redfern in Sydney, Billy’s Tree is a powerful novel that deals with the impossibility of escaping your past and the need to confront longstanding injustices.

On the eve of the local rugby club (the ‘Rabbitohs’) being expelled from the national competition, Johnnie Butler arrives in Redfern with his mother and is soon befriended by some elderly neighbours. There’s Major Bob and his mate Old Tom who are obsessive supporters of the Rabbitohs, and there’s the Greek woman, Yaya Zoe, who brings Johnnie homemade baklava, and toys bought more than fifty years earlier but never opened. On the day that the Rabbitohs are kicked out of the league, Johnnie disappears. When found, he is profoundly disturbed and has lost the power of speech. What has caused Johnnie to descend into silence? What does it have to do with his brother, Billy? And why does their mother despise Major Bob so intensely?

Played out against the backdrop of the struggle to have the Rabbitohs reinstated into the national competition, this novel traverses the twentieth century, interweaving the experiences of Greek and Lebanese immigrants, Aboriginal stolen children, World War II prisoners of war, and sporting fanatics whose lifelong devotion to their local footy club is essential to their identity.

Billy’s Tree is about the importance of friendship and community, the need to exorcise ghosts, and the devastating ways in which families can be torn apart. It is a deeply moving and unforgettable story, rooted in a specific place, with themes that are universal.