Review: Party Boy, by Breton Dukes
'The novel is entirely Marco’s. We are never shown anything outside of what he experiences, or is forced to remember...'
From the acknowledgements in Breton Dukes’ latest book Party Boy, I gather the author didn’t set out to write a novel. Perhaps he intended to document an account of the culture at Otago Boys High School. A former student himself, Dukes spoke to school mates to collect stories, curating a picture of bullying and abuse that feels as much a part of the tradition as the scratchy blazer and the gold lettering on the First XV honours board. In the end, the author decided the easiest way to approach the material was to write fiction, to strike the names from the record if not the shadows of pain and humiliation.
In Party Boy, family man Marco grapples with his past, and his part in the toxic lad culture of his former High School, in the lead up to his 50th birthday party. Dukes is the author of three short story collections, What Sort of Man (2020), Empty Bones (2014) and Bird North (2011), but Party Boy is his first novel.
The novel is entirely Marco’s. We are never shown anything outside of what he experiences, or is forced to remember, when the apparitions of his past begin to infiltrate the here and now. This inside-his-head format feels like a good fit for Marco’s intensity. While he goes about the chaotic machinations of his family life, work and (mercifully) therapy, Marco’s obsessive ruminations on who he is versus how he is perceived illustrates a nuclear level of self-obsession. He can be hard to like. He’s frankly a terrible employee. His lucid sexual imaginings featuring wife Michelle are offset against the realities of their chilly marital standoff. There are stories from his school days that he cannot lock eyes with. Yet, he is redeemed in his dedication to domestic life and tenderness towards the couple’s three boys. And this is the question Marco pushes against throughout the book. When the scale of integrity teeters between good and bad, shame and pride, how do we know who we are?
Dukes brings a short story writer’s sensibility to the page with his pared down style, and attention to specific detail. This skill is deftly demonstrated in the opening scene where Marco is floundering as a lone chef in a busy kitchen, addled by painkillers, and digging himself into chaos and disarray. The tension is as palpable as the scent of the sizzling grill. ‘Get the arancini balls made, Marco!’ you want to yell, as from the first sentence this flawed and struggling character springs forth as complete and real. You could describe it as character-driven; certainly it feels like a hard-out exploration of what makes up a person.
The storyline centres around Marco’s spiraling crisis of confidence in the lead up to his 50th birthday. He decides to organise a party, throwing the net wide to invite people from all the eras of his life. In his mind, the celebration becomes a moment of reckoning where the life he has built, at least the one that others can see, is on show. This isn’t an active, adventurous plot. The story happens in Marco’s head, and we alternately follow along with adult Marco, faltering and searching for meaning; the teenage rugby head, neck deep in bullying culture; and the frightened boy, isolated from his parents and adrift. The story is at its most powerful during these dips into the past. The present action is less urgent at times. I was left unquenched by the odd thread that was pulled and not revealed.
The extended party scene, however, is as skillfully displayed as you could ask for. It’s notoriously tricky to navigate a multi-room crowd scene. Dukes does it with mastery, juggling a house full of people, an impaired host, and a barbecue threatening to start an inferno. It’s loud, it’s disjointed, and immersive reading. Heady stuff and an impressive first novel.
