Sassafras Lowery
Arsenal Pulp Press/Newsouth Books
Otago Daily Times, August 29th 2015
I have to admit to feeling a few moments of doubt about the palatability of Lost Boi for mainstream readership after looking at the author’s profile (Sassafras Lowrey describes hirself as a straight-edge queer punk who has been honoured by, among others, the National Leather Foundation). But although the novel is set firmly within a sexual counterculture, it is in fact a brilliantly original and engaging reimagining of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale. In it, Lowrey creates a real-world analogue of Neverland in an abandoned industrial site occupied by a cast of characters who are excluded from ‘mainstream’ society because of their sexual identity and/or preferences.
Here, were fairy-dust really IS fairy dust, the Crocodile heroin, and people really do fly. Pan’s bois (biological females who identify as male, and who have abandoned, or been abandoned by, their birth parents) live out an anarchic fantasy, partying with the femme prostitutes of Mermaid House, and battling each other or with the BDSM fetishist Pirates led by the honourable, old-school Leather man, Hook.
This is the only place they have ever felt accepted or cared for and the bois’ loyalty to their Sir is unwavering; their days dictated by Pan’s rules and centred around attempts to win their leader’s approval and affection. Then Pan brings home two newcomers to join the family; a new boi, John Michael and Wendi, a grrrl who slips into her new role as Mommy with a wholehearted enthusiasm that soon wins her a place next to Pan in their hearts.
But Pan soon becomes uncomfortable with the idea of playing Daddy, particularly when it becomes apparent that Wendi has ambitions to grow her bois into upstanding and successful members of society, and slowly drifts away from his family and deeper into the love-hate relationship with arch-enemy Hook, an ongoing battle for domination that dates back to the their first meeting when Pan introduced Hook to the Crocodile that is now his constant companion.
The story is told from the perspective of Tootles, Pan’s second in command, and contains all the elements of the original story. Although the characters strongly identify with a sexual ‘underground’, this is a world where ‘no’ really DOES mean ‘no’, and any physical references are far less confronting than much that is already considered mainstream.
Lowrey provides just enough detail to allow the non-initiated reader to infer its workings without explicit detail or description, and leaves unfamiliar gender identifiers to be deciphered from context (or, just as effectively, left ambiguous). At its heart, Lost Boi is a moving and believable examination of love, identity and the urge to belong that I personally found it much less unsettling than the original children’s story.
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