Darrel Cake

Ferals Darrel Cake

Ferals is an Australian Adventure / Romance novel which tracks the story of a young Sydney stockbroker Carl, and his sex-obsessed girlfriend, Sabrina. After a disastrous financial loss, they decide to leave Sydney and go to Western Australia, to "drop out" for a while. Their introduction to country life is confronting compared to their previous expensive way of living. They join with a group of three others, and spend their lives living a feral lifestyle, based around surfing, with a lot of humour and anecdotes thrown in. They plan a trip to the desert surfing spots of Western Australia, where they encounter a motley group of others, who expose them to the "feral philosophy." Carl doesn't get it, so he becomes the centre figture of a special ritual, based on Ancient Egyptian magic. After this, he feels as if he has managed to integrate all aspects of himself together. They are faced with some "monster surf," which ends in tragedy. After the tragedy, the feral clan split up and go their different ways. The book has been written in "Plain English," so it is accessible to a young adult market, while also being a "good holiday read" for all ages, and for people with English as a second language. It draws upon the writer's knowledge of the south west of Western Australia, where he was born. It also draws upon the authors passion for world mysticism, particularly Greek and And Egyptian, and Jungian psychology. It is based on the inner journey of a person, from outside observation to inner enlightenment, and draws on classic European mythology. When Ferals was first published in 1999, it was a hit among young adult readers, particularly boys, and was appreciated by educators as a "boys book," to entice young men back to reading. It also sold well to school libraries and public libraries and in Europe, particularly France, Germany, England, Sweden, and it was translated into six languages. In Australia, many copies were stolen from public libraries. The book is "clean," in that it aims to promote healthy living and thought among young people. Reviewers described it as "an awesome book," "a modern mythological tale which makes for very good reading," a "ripper little yarn, ." and a "cult classic."