Published 2004 | Pages 292 | Paperback 

“The country school teacher should be the friend and philosopher of the district.”

Inspired by this message from his college lecturers, the idealistic and zealous 19-year-old Doug O’Connor takes up his first appointment to a remote one-teacher school in a decaying Australian country town.

Friend and Philosopher is an honestly written story, told with warmth, tenderness and insight. Entering that painful period when the child must become an adult, Doug encounters a series of reversals for which he is ill equipped and struggles to come to a better understanding of himself.

Tense and engaging, Friend and Philosopher captures the awkwardness and confusion of youth, celebrates the loss of innocence and deals with profound and complex issues in a candid and compelling way.