Funkytown by Paul Kennedy

Funkytown by Paul Kennedy
Paul Kennedy, known to many for his fine work as a journalist and television presenter, has written a rich and nuanced family memoir. It is an ode to football, friendship, Frankston—the ‘Funkytown’ of the title—and the steadfast beauty of his family life. Set during the final year of secondary school, it follows the spirited, restless and frequently self-destructive Paul through failures and, for him, too infrequent successes. With an unerring and often humorous gaze, Kennedy leads us through his youthful secrets, longings and rites of passage.

This is more than a coming-of-age narrative, for it celebrates the influence not only of his remarkable parents (‘Their love kept me from falling to pieces’), but the importance of teachers—three in particular—and the books which set him on the path to writing and journalism. The book bears the imprint of a journalist’s research and a writer’s feeling for language, recreating 1990s Frankston (the pub life and its soundtracks) and, more grimly, recording the impact of a serial killer in the suburb and the fear and loss of innocence it engendered. Such is the author’s skill as a writer that each very enjoyable chapter could be read alone as a short story.
 

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