Opening Sentence:I was sitting at Ma’s place one day – I must’ve been about 20 at the time – when Jai’s come flying into the kitchen laughing his head off.
Synopsis:Maroubra was a tough place to grow up. Ringed by a jail, a sewerage works, a rifle range and a housing commission estate, it was where the streets of Sydney met the beach. It was a place where the local boys surfed hard and partied harder. It was also a place where trouble easily found you.
Adopted by Maroubra Beach at a young age, the four Abberton brothers, all born to different fathers and a mother in the clutches of heroin addiction, grew up at a time when the area was shadowed by drugs and gang violence. Raised largely by their grandmother, Sunny, Jai, Koby and Dakota found solace in the surf, and solidarity with their mates, the Bra Boys.
The official biography of the Abberton brothers follows their story from a turbulent upbringing on the sands of Maroubra to international surf stardom, and the fateful events of 5 August 2003, when Jai shot dead Maroubra underworld figure and childhood friend Tony Hines, only to be acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. My Brother’s Keeper is raw, gritty, from the heart…and everything you won’t read about in the newspapers.
Genre:Biography
Rating:@@@@@
Pages:490
ISBN:978-0-7322-8554-8
Year:2009
Format:Paperback
Comments:Like most people, all I knew about the Bra Boys is what I read about in the papers or saw on TV. My Brother’s Keeper opened my eyes to just how much the Bra Boys in general, and the Abberton brothers in particular, have been misrepresented in the media. Told in their own words, this is a no-holds-barred account of life on the streets and beaches of Maroubra. Sunny, Jai, Koby, Dakota and a few of their friends each give their own point of view on growing up in Maroubra. They each tell key points in their lives from the their earliest memories through to present times, including their side of events that were covered in the media.
Written in an easy to read down-to-earth style that generously treats the reader as a mate, the Abberton brothers tell the good, the bad and the ugly of life as a Bra Boy. They do not try to paint themselves as angels or victims, but simply as ordinary, everyday blokes, doing the best they could to survive the harsh, exacting yet loving embrace of Sydney’s beaches.
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