Local teen lands dream book deal FEATURE STORY

Abstract

[...]while Reilly had to self-publish his first novel, Heath was fortunate enough to find a home with Pan Macmillan, one of the country's biggest publishing houses. Pan Macmillan is marketing it as young adult fiction but Heath hopes "grown ups" will enjoy it as much as teenage boys.

I T WAS the combination of a boring reading list at school and an assignment on the human genome project that inspired Jack Heath to start writing his first novel. He was 14, studying at Lyneham High School, and sick of reading dark and depressing books about teenage angst. "Teenagers don't need to read about how much life sucks - they know that already," Heath says. "What they want is escapism." So it's escapism he gave them. It took Heath three years to finish The Lab, a rollicking Matthew Reilly-ish adventure aimed at the teenage market. And while Reilly had to self-publish his first novel, Heath was fortunate enough to find a home with Pan Macmillan, one of the country's biggest publishing houses. At just 17, with a finished manuscript saved on the computer in his parents' study, Heath went online looking for a publisher. Pan Macmillan were the only ones who accepted unsolicited manuscripts and with all the exuberance of youth he sent it off. Pan Macmillan replied.

After a couple of years of fine-tuning, making it longer, cutting it back again, The Lab has just been published. At 19, and in his first few weeks of a degree in creative writing at the University of Canberra, Heath is a published author. You're reminded he's still a teenager himself when he complains that he wasn't allowed to submit part of his book for his first assignment. He also mentions he wants to own a copy of every Milla Jovovich movie ever made. He's worried about his hair in our photograph. It's a fresh appeal that comes across in The Lab, the story of 16-year-old superhuman Agent Six of Hearts who works for The Deck, a vigilante group fighting for good against the evil Lab. As Six completes mission after mission, each feat more unbelievable than the next, he learns more about his true place in life. "If you had to say there was a theme, it would be a journey from arrogance to humility, something most teenagers go through," says Heath, adding that his primary goal was to entertain the reader. He

says there are some parts of the book that are autobiographical - "obviously not the superhuman parts" - saying that most teenagers struggle to find their place in the world. He hopes that the book will appeal to a wide audience. Pan Macmillan is marketing it as young adult fiction but Heath hopes "grown ups" will enjoy it as much as teenage boys. "Teenage boys don't read any more. I teach guitar to high school students and what I've noticed is that boys aren't reading. "When I went through school reading was uncool because the uncool kids were the only ones who were doing it. Now no one is. "If they set something like Matthew Reilly's Ice Station as a set text the kids would love it. It would really open their eyes." Heath says he's always been a reader, saying his parents Ian Heath and Barbara Davidson began reading to him and his younger brother Tom, 16, from a very early age. Now he lists his favourite authors as Reilly, Dean Koontz and Robert Rankin. He says George Orwell's 1984 is an "absolute classic". His family have been very supportive of the book. "Dad loved it, Mum's still reading this version, and Tom really enjoyed the long manuscript we refer to now as the 'extended director's cut'." Would he like it if someone such as the ABC picked up the book and serialised it for an after-school sci-fi timeslot? "That would be absolutely fantastic." With Heath's good fortune, perhaps he should do a semester of scriptwriting and send it off. Stranger things have happened in fiction. The Lab. By Jack Heath. Pan Macmillan. 320pp. $16.95

Credit: The Canberra Times