No More Boats

Book excerpt: Both a gripping family drama and a timely meditation on borders, the media, and immigration, No More Boats tells a universal story about fitting in and feeling threatened. Set in Sydney's working-class western suburbs, No More Boats is a vivid portrait of a family whose unraveling collides with a crisis known as the " Tampa affair," when over four hundred refugees were left stranded fifteen miles off the Australian coast as debate over their legitimate entry into the country raged. Antonio, a recently unemployed Italian immigrant, awkwardly assumes a starring role in the fracas, and drags into the spotlight his wife Rose, who has a rich back story of her own, and their two children, Nico and Claire, who are both drifting. Manipulated by the media and made vulnerable by his feelings of irrelevance, Antonio commits an act that makes him a lightning rod for the factions at odds over the Tampa affair. No More Boats is an unbiased, moving, original, and important story about the world we live in, the families we come from, and the raw impulses that we attempt to conceal.