WHAT HARRY SAW

American-born novelist Moran (The Man in the Box) portrays a slice of Sydney life in this tale of one man's emotional blindness. Harry Hull, who narrates his story with the bitter clarity of hindsight, dabbles with speed during adolescence, and his addiction leads to auto theft and a term in Vietnam in lieu of jail. Shredded by shrapnel in Phuoc Tuy, Harry returns to Australia suitably chastened and moves in with his dad, who uses his pull with the pressmen's union to get Harry a job as a reporter on the Herald. It is there he meets the love of his life, journalist Lucy Whitmoor. The first half of the novel alternates between Harry's seven-year affair with Lucy and his father's mental and physical decay, brought on by a stroke and a mysterious brain ailment, both of which trigger his WWII service memories. When Joe dies, Harry clams up. His emotional withdrawal precipitates his breakup with Lucy, who leaves Sydney pregnant with his child. Harry is torn up, but eventually accepts her absence and meets another woman. Then one day Lucy is at his door again, announcing, to his shock, that she gave the baby up for adoption—but she won't say why. When he finally learns the reason and understands Lucy's sacrifice, Harry suffers the bitter pain of insight. Harry's bluff, vernacular voice never sugarcoats his impoverished personality, a mixture of rage and self-loathing. He's a hard guy to like, and Moran risks losing the reader's sympathy for his difficult protagonist, whose inability to express emotion becomes annoying after a while. The irony of the denouement, however, and its realistic assessment of Harry's future, is genuinely affecting. (Sept. 16)