The Opposite Lane

Book excerpt: 14-year-old born blind Luciana and 28-year-old Russian emigrant Max; two romantic, intelligent and disadvantaged people in Australia, who struggle to find their place in society, but find themselves in rather awkward situations instead. They enjoy communicating with each other by email, but fail to meet in person, although the vicissitudes of fate confront them again and again... The book consists of two parts; Part One is narrated by Luciana, while Part Two contains Max's notes. The humour of the characters is sad and ironic, sometimes rising to outright sarcasm. Their comments are honest, though not void of certain controversy, bias and exaggeration. Complementing each other, they allow to observe the described events from different viewpoints and obtain impartial judgment about the heroes and their actions. The novel contains nude scenes and references to adult themes, however its scope is far wider than that.