All three of the predominant themes of Geoff Goodfellow's substantial contribution to Australian literature run through this verse novella: the heroism of working class struggle, the tragedy of addiction and the celebration of love and sexual attraction.

Geoff has always shown a concern for those abandoned youths who are left to navigate their way through the dysfunction wrought by alcohol, drugs and violence. 'Blight Street' continues Geoff's iconoclastic disregard for stale literary formalism, in order to allow his protagonists to relate their narratives in their own voices.

'I won't get into the Ice like me old man' says Carl, 'the thought of what it's done ... leaves me cold'. From his prison cell Carl's father laments that 'no-one comes to see me now' but is still making 'too many excuses' while Carl is left to 'pull and hold his crying mother in tight' on the occasion of her fourth 'AA birthday'. 'Pity it wasn't bloody more' swears Larissa about the prison sentence imposed on her abusive father.

This book is a must for parents, for teachers, for young adults and for everyone who has an understanding of, and sympathy for, human frailty and the raw emotions of the human condition.

The Honourable Chris Kourakis, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia