The Brink (Holden Sheppard, Text)
In The Brink, schoolies week goes horribly wrong when a group of school leavers find themselves isolated on a remote island along the Western Australian coast. Everyone is trying to leave parts of themselves behind. For shy, geeky Leonardo, it’s the crippling anxiety that has plagued him throughout high school; for good girl Kaiya, it’s the intense expectations of her parents; and for Mason, it’s the confines of the jock stereotype that have kept him from revealing his feelings towards his best mate, Jared. Fuelled by alcohol, drugs and raging hormones, the pressure cooker of adolescence is set to explode. Nobody will leave the island the same; some won’t leave the island at all. Holden Sheppard’s debut, Invisible Boys, explored the realities of being a gay boy in a small town, and in The Brink, he demonstrates a similar commitment to the realities of being a teenager (albeit through the intense framework of a thriller). Sheppard dismantles and interrogates stereotypes of masculinity and sexuality, showing a great generosity to his characters. Rather than shying away from ‘bad behaviour’, he leans into it, presenting a group of teens pushed to their limits and exposing the best and worst sides of themselves. The Brink is a story about life on the edge—of adulthood, identity, sobriety and reality. In a series of life-defining moments, each character must decide who they will become. Sheppard’s writing is gripping and authentic, and The Brink acknowledges and amplifies the real challenges that face young people as they step into adulthood.
Bec Kavanagh is a Melbourne writer and academic, and the Youth Programming Manager at the Wheeler Centre.
