Blue Black is in a strange world. He is a scholarship student – the son of a logger – at an exclusive school for the children of the wealthy. When a new student arrives, Blue doesn’t think they will have anything in common. The new student is, after all, Harold Romsey, the heir to the British throne. But the pair do have something in common, it seems. Both struggle to fit in, Blue because of his working class background, and Harold because of the cushioning his positioning gives him. And there’s something else – or rather someone else. Both Blue and Harold have fallen for the same girl – Sas McGovern, the daughter of a politician.
Against a backdrop of the political turmoil of 1975, Blue and Harold face turmoil of their own. Blue is a spectator to Harold and Sas’s blossoming relationship. But when complications arise, the result of a relationship between the British prince and the daughter of a prominent politician, Blue has a bigger role to play than he could have imagined.
Lies I Told About a Girl is told with humour, yet it is not ultimately a humorous novel. It deals with very serious subjects of politics, class, teenage sex and responsibility. The political turmoil created by the sacking of the Whitlam Government in 1975 is mirrored and intertwined with the fictional tale of Sas and Harold’s relationship and the part Blue plays in its aftermath.
Whilst teen readers may not be well versed in the historical component of this novel, they will enjoy the humour of Blue’s tale and his voice. It is this use of humour which makes the story a success.
Lies I Told About a Girl, by Anson Cameron
Pan Macmillan, 2006