There's a million dissatisfactions among the Australian middle class as they confront their middle age. Here are just a few of them. Digby Crabbe, CEO of a successful boot company doesn't know what he wants but he really wants it bad. His wife Melanie just wants her family to be happy. Lost and feeling alienated in the dangerous currents of the changing Australian mainstream, neither of them will get what they want.
A famous Chinese proverb says it takes 2 generations to build a dynasty and the 3rd will bring it down. Talking up the Company charts the rise and fall of a great Australian family dynasty who came from nothing in the early 20th century and return to nothing in the early 21st. Bootmakers, industrial workwear manufacturers and latterly even a lifestyle brand, Crabbe is an icon in Australia. A brand carefully crafted by the men of one family over a hundred years. Digby Crabbe is the current CEO and custodian of that proud family tradition; watch him blow it all apart with terrible decisions and some very bad behaviour.
Digby's wife, Melanie has always been a searcher and a seeker. She seeks the meaning of life in a succession of spiritual affiliations and pastimes. She seeks contentment in family. She seeks love in Digby. Despite all her seeking, Melanie remains unhappy and unfulfilled. She knows she has a nice home, a good family and financial security. So, why can't she just be happy?
This is a story about how a succession of poor choices can lead you to ruin; how someone can go from having everything to having nothing. A fable warning of the dangers of hubris; a quality that seems to have infected the zeitgeist like a virus. It's also a story of identity crisis among contemporary Australian men. Digby Crabbe carries all the failings of the modern man child. He feels entitled to a better life but he's not prepared to work for it. At 50, he begrudges the loss of his youth and his missed opportunities, but he's a lazy slob who doesn't know when he's got it good. Things won't go well for Digby Crabbe.
Is there any redemption? Not really, it's not that sort of story.��
Oh and by the way, it's also a story about finding and losing love, the most precious commodity of all.
Genre: Literary Fiction
A famous Chinese proverb says it takes 2 generations to build a dynasty and the 3rd will bring it down. Talking up the Company charts the rise and fall of a great Australian family dynasty who came from nothing in the early 20th century and return to nothing in the early 21st. Bootmakers, industrial workwear manufacturers and latterly even a lifestyle brand, Crabbe is an icon in Australia. A brand carefully crafted by the men of one family over a hundred years. Digby Crabbe is the current CEO and custodian of that proud family tradition; watch him blow it all apart with terrible decisions and some very bad behaviour.
Digby's wife, Melanie has always been a searcher and a seeker. She seeks the meaning of life in a succession of spiritual affiliations and pastimes. She seeks contentment in family. She seeks love in Digby. Despite all her seeking, Melanie remains unhappy and unfulfilled. She knows she has a nice home, a good family and financial security. So, why can't she just be happy?
This is a story about how a succession of poor choices can lead you to ruin; how someone can go from having everything to having nothing. A fable warning of the dangers of hubris; a quality that seems to have infected the zeitgeist like a virus. It's also a story of identity crisis among contemporary Australian men. Digby Crabbe carries all the failings of the modern man child. He feels entitled to a better life but he's not prepared to work for it. At 50, he begrudges the loss of his youth and his missed opportunities, but he's a lazy slob who doesn't know when he's got it good. Things won't go well for Digby Crabbe.
Is there any redemption? Not really, it's not that sort of story.��
Oh and by the way, it's also a story about finding and losing love, the most precious commodity of all.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Steve Hicks's Talking Up the Company