Hailed as a real-life Boy Swallows Universe, a 'bold, brutal and unforgettable' memoir of growing up in the criminal underbelly of Queensland's Gold Coast in the 1980s.
If being powerless makes you jumpy, then being poor makes you envious. You notice when other people are happy and you become keenly aware of those things that they have, that make them happy, that you do not have. Sometimes, you know better than they do about what brings them joy.
Andrew Sneddon has made a name for himself in Australia and internationally as a successful archaeologist and heritage consultant. But his success belies his childhood- at the age of eleven, Sneddon finds himself living in the criminal underbelly of Queensland's Gold Coast. His conman stepfather has moved the family from suburban Canberra to chase his next scam. But in the 1980s, there is scant help for a woman and her three children who are ricocheting between domestic violence and homelessness.
As Sneddon charts the often frightening and sometimes farcical journey of his teenage years, he also reflects on them through contemporary eyes as an archaeologist. Told with candour and refreshing humour, Prehistoric Joy explores the importance of family and the timeless search for happiness.
Hailed as a real-life Boy Swallows Universe, a 'bold, brutal and unforgettable' memoir of growing up in the criminal underbelly of Queensland's Gold Coast in the 1980s.
If being powerless makes you jumpy, then being poor makes you envious. You notice when other people are happy and you become keenly aware of those things that they have, that make them happy, that you do not have. Sometimes, you know better than they do about what brings them joy.
Andrew Sneddon has made a name for himself in Australia and internationally as a successful archaeologist and heritage consultant. But his success belies his childhood- at the age of eleven, Sneddon finds himself living in the criminal underbelly of Queensland's Gold Coast. His conman stepfather has moved the family from suburban Canberra to chase his next scam. But in the 1980s, there is scant help for a woman and her three children who are ricocheting between domestic violence and homelessness.
As Sneddon charts the often frightening and sometimes farcical journey of his teenage years, he also reflects on them through contemporary eyes as an archaeologist. Told with candour and refreshing humour, Prehistoric Joy explores the importance of family and the timeless search for happiness.
Andrew Sneddon is co-owner and a director of Australia's largest specialist heritage consultancy, Extent Heritage. He has lived and worked in Melbourne and Sydney, and been involved in archaeological research excavations around the world, including in Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Italy, Greece, Cambodia and Myanmar. Andrew was the Director of UQ's Culture and Heritage Unit from 2009 to 2017. He currently lives in Brisbane with his wife and son. Prehistoric Joy is his first book.
'An unflinching memoir of poverty, domestic violence and alcoholism that plays out in the murky tank stream beneath one of the brightest and gaudiest places on earth - the Gold Coast of the 1980s. Sneddon's heartbreaking drama is also riven with flashbacks from ancient civilisation, giving it at once a universality that both illuminates and compounds his insights into the human condition. As the story unfolds we're reminded of how brilliant the human race has been, and also how utterly predictable and incapable of learning from its own past. Sneddon brilliantly captures the Gold Coast's recent history - the spivs, the crims, the booze, the pawn shops, the high-rise apartments and beer gardens, the violent husbands and apathetic police, all played out against the relentless and unchanged music of happy tourists and the relentless wash of the ocean. Prehistoric Joy is not for the feint-hearted, but it tackles the age-old malevolence of domestic violence with a fresh, original and empathic eye, and Sneddon's writing contains both the sharpness of a blade and the warmth of hope. Bold, brutal and unforgettable.' - Matthew Condon
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