Stillways: A Memoir

Steve Bisley and Mel Gibson in Mad Max

Steve Bisley is an Australian actor best known perhaps for playing a cop in the movie Mad Max named Jim Goose.
His most recent mainstream role was as Dan Cody in 
The Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

I've already written a few posts on this blog about my path crossings with Steve's and when I purchased my copy of Stillways -
The Steve Bisley Sync: BBWF 
Well, I finally got around to finishing Steve's book about a week before The Bangalow Billycart Derby day, where Steve was in the celebrity race on the day.

Steve Bisley at the top of the hill before the race

Steve acting the "goose" at
the bottom, after the race

I like to encourage writers, and as I had seen Steve hanging around the BBWF for the last few years, I bought this book thinking this was probably going to be a rather lame read from an actor who is just a wanna-be author flogging his childhood story, because he couldn't think of anything else to write.
Boy, were my suspicions wrong.
This was a great book, not only because it dredged memories from Steve's past for us readers to imagine about, as he told his story, but because for most reader's around my age (49) he was bringing up memories that were common to our childhood, as well.
Also, the way he related his memories to us, the readers, was as if he was seeing the world through the eyes of  the child he was before he could think like the adult he now is as the author of the book.
It works well, because the naivety of the child describing the world in his words to us also makes the observations he sees seem rather wise in ways adults don't seem to see while life goes on around them.
The humour and sadness is from the heart in this book, which makes the stories between the pages even more compelling to take into our own hearts.
It's hard not to feel the wonder, pain, sadness, disappointment, warmth, humour and love in the young Steve Bisley's heart as you read along with his words.

Carpet python I saw on my
bushwalk, eating a possum

Steve tells of being fascinated at seeing a carpet python slowly devour a possum in his backyard shed, which brought back my own memories of witnessing the same thing on a bushwalk and watching the spectacle for over an hour before resuming the walk.

Don't leave home without
having a toilet near by:-)

One weekend when I was reading Stillways I had decided to flush my system out, so to speak, using a product that moves like the wind at my workplace, pardon the pun...and other things that may be brought up, as well in this post;-)
I had been told stories of what you could expect using  
Colon Cleanse if you were to venture outside the home not knowing where the next "port of call" might be, so I grabbed a book and stayed around the house that day ... and I was relieved that I did.
I was thinking how terribly embarrassing it would be if you needed to go this badly out in public and didn't make it into port on time, so to speak.
Next chapter I read after a having a good cleanse and envisioning public embarrassment because of a lack of bowel control when using this product was the chapter where Steve messes his pants the first week of high school when he and other school members come down with a bad stomach bug.  

Pages 168-169 of Stillways

And trust an actor to have an intermission break around midway of his story.
The real power of this book  for me though was how Steve Bisley lowers all the masks from Steve Bisley "the actor" and shows us readers a bit of "Steve Bisley" the person.
Steve 'Jim Goose' Bisley on Mad Max and Australian film.
So, if you love to read a good book, here's another one for your bookshelf.
Steve isn't a wanna-be author, this book proves he is the real deal.
Buy a copy.
You won't be sorry.
Steve Bisley's childhood memoir Stillways

I wouldn't blame you if you wouldn't buy a car off this man, but I can assure you his book is no lemon.