The Dickens Boy

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Imagine being the son of Charles Dickens, who ships you off to Australia when you are just sixteen to make your own way in life. Exhorted to apply yourself for once, you set out to do your father proud - even if, to your shame, you haven't read a single one of his novels. This is the story of Charles Dickens' endearing youngest child, known as Plorn, and his adventures in the outback amid colonists, ex-convicts, Aborigines and a handful of eligible young women. But even on a remote sheep station he cannot escape the great novelist's fame, or the gossip about his scandalous liason with an actress. As Plorn strives to be his own man, he begins to view his father with more critical eyes; and yet he discovers he is still able to love and admire him, for all his flaws