A pissant is technically defined as ‘an insignificant or contemptible person or thing’. Not so Brandon Jack’s pissants. These are vigorous young men who are trapped in the twilight zone between greatness and the fear of mediocrity.
An early chapter introduces each young man via an explanation of how he earned his nickname:
Windmill is ‘Windmill’ because after a few drinks he is known to take his pants off and whirl his penis around like a windmill. What started like a joke has become a regular fixture at all team social gatherings where alcohol is involved. Windmill, a rather quiet character when sober, accepts his called-upon duty with stoic resignation.
With this flurry of introductions – and a diatribe from Stick (whose name is derived from Ballistic because many consider him ‘to be a complete psychopath’) – the reader is immersed in an environment as different, in a culture as strange and often a language as foreign as if they had travelled to a different dimension.
Where they have ended up is among a group of footy players who are good enough to be recruited by an elite football club but not talented enough to be selected to play regularly in the top team.
Pissants unpacks how living their lives this close to potential sporting greatness affects these young men, how they spend their time and expend their energy, how they live their lives and how they support and tease each other. And while their pranks, such as kidnapping a dog, may be childish and their humour rough, their camaraderie runs deep.
This is a strange book in many ways. Some chapters are written in the first person, some in the third. Some are part Instagram messages, some are comments to the editor and some are in the form of a stream of consciousness such as the one about a coach under the influence of drugs.
Chapters such as those about visits to Paris and to Amsterdam are in diary form and have a charming wistful feel, in stark contrast to the chapters detailing drunken nights out or bizarre games such as one using fridge magnets.
Pissants: not a novel in the traditional sense
The chapter headed ‘Wank’ devotes almost ten pages to how, when, where and why the writer masturbates and how that feels. Some chapters could be read on their own as short stories; this is not a novel in the traditional sense. Each narrative approach is different; all gift you with a deeper insight into this group of men shamelessly saying: take us as we are, bullshit and all.
You may, perhaps to your deep regret, have gone on a pub crawl or two in your youth. But you likely never went on one quite as regulated as the Pissants Open, the rules for which cover over 20 pages, including such directives as this:
Longest drive will be played on the 12th hole. Longest drive is judged by the length of piss streams in the back alley. You are allowed to line up your shot for ten seconds, any longer than that (aka stage fright) is a disqualification.
There is surprisingly little focus on the actual game of football or the ‘anonymous’ club the pissants belong to. One of the exceptions is the description of a Monday morning encounter between a coach and the pissant known as Fangs (‘“Fangs” because when he first got to the club he had an additional two top teeth coming out of his gums.’) It tells you a lot about what it feels like after a lost match.
In one column you get the coaches train of thought, in the other you get Fang’s, though it’s not all about losing though a sense of loss pervades.
Naturally the blurbs on book covers are there to attract the reader. That doesn’t mean they must be biased; they can be insightful as well as enticing. One such blurb is by the comedy duo known as Freudian Nip who astutely observe that ‘Brandon Jack understands men so profoundly that it’s surprising he is one’.
In a recent interview in The Guardian, Jack says, ‘I just wanted to prove to myself that I could write funny characters. Obviously there are things I am subconsciously exploring, but there’s no agenda to this book for me.’
Read: Brown. Female. Doctor. review: Sarah Arachchi’s marvellous medical memoir
He has certainly succeeded in his goal and achieved so much more. This book will give you many laughs and will stir you deeply at times. It is fiction at its best – truer than life.
Pissants by Brandon Jack is published by Simon & Schuster and Summit Books.
