Nimble Foot by Robert Drewe is a rollicking tale inspired by the true story of an Australian boy called Johnny Day. In the latter half of the 1800s, Day became the world champion of the then popular sport of pedestrianism when he was ten. At the age of fourteen, he rode a horse called Nimble Foot to win the 1870 Melbourne Cup. Then he disappeared and despite extensive searches, Robert Drewe could find no further mention of ‘the Child Wonder of Australia’.
What does an author do when an extraordinary story like this is incomplete? Make it up, of course. Robert Drewe has linked Johnny Day’s story to other real events in Melbourne at the time to create the circumstances in which someone would want to disappear. Nimble Foot tells the tale of Johnny Day’s flight from people who wished him harm. It is a part thriller and part entertainment.
The great pleasure of Nimble Foot is its style. Robert Drewe adopts a ‘tall-tale-but-true’ style of writing. This is in keeping with the style of newspaper writing in the 1800s, but also with the story telling we know from the poems of Banjo Patterson and yarns told by old-style rural settlers. The novel bursts with every exaggerated story of extraordinary natural events or unusual creatures that spring from the author’s research or from his imagination.
Robert Drewe is well known for his evocative descriptions of the sea and coastline of Australia. His collections of short stories, The Bodysurfers and The True Colour of the Sea are wonderful examples of this. Nimble Foot contains many such gems. Wonderful descriptions of the landscapes of country Victoria and the south of Western Australia accompany Johnny Day’s travels within Australia. Also, Drewe’s portraits of the country folk Johnny Day encounters are masterful. He has captured not only the language of the 1800s but also the everyday preoccupations of a time when horses provided the main form of transport, and anyone with a special way with horses was highly valued.
While the story of Johnny Day contains its share of hardship, he is a resourceful character. In tone and plot, Nimble Foot is essentially upbeat and can be enjoyed for its exaggerated style of storytelling, its descriptions of landscape, as well as for its considerable historical interest.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks Ben. I’m glad you enjoy the reviews.