An Australian story of innocence, friendship, faith, tragedy and growing up ... 'Even a toilet is the House of the Lord,' he once said to me. 'You can pray in there. Christ doesn't mind where you contact him. I will save sinners in shithouses. Convert them in there. You just watch me. I'm not afraid.' This is a story of two young men going out on their own and doing it their own way. Bertie Warble is a Melbourne suburban boy railing against his too true-blue family and their beliefs but not sure what to replace them with. Johnny Rigos is the beloved first son of a Greek-Australian family who, reeling from the sexual abuse he suffered at Catholic school, escapes into an obsession with God and a plan to save the world with the power of love. Thrown together in the counter-culture world of Melbourne in the 1970s they form an intense friendship and, brimming with ideals of freedom, faith and discovery, this wonderfully original odd couple take off on a half-baked mission to Central Australia. Out in the desert, Bertie realises what he's looking for: the security of family, the girlfriend he'd left in Melbourne, finishing his apprenticeship as a panelbeater, toothpaste. A future that doesn't include Johnny and his crazy ideas. But not long after these friends part company, Johnny, still preaching his own brand of faith and fearlessness, is brutally killed in a public toilet block. He makes the ultimate discovery that there is, after all, no room for dreamers in the House of the Lord. And Bertie, safely back in the burbs with a beautiful wife and brand new baby boy, grieves, not just for his friend, but for the ideals we sacrifice on our way to becoming grown-ups. Told with great love in the bitter-sweet larrikin voice of Barry Dickins, The House of the Lord is a coming of age story with a difference. It's a poignant, very special book about not fitting in; about the search for faith and ideals, about the love shared between mates; the grief of losing a friend; and saying good-bye to the idealism and invincibility of youth. It's a beautifully balanced tragicomedy that truly is as funny as it is sad. Barry Dickins has a terrific ear for how Australians speak and magical insights into relationships, families and the hopeless dag within us all. Meet Bertie's father, Len... We are all tucked up and snug as a bug in a rug, and Dad's black whiskers on his chin make us chuckle, and he reads us The Coral Island, doing all the pirate voices. He's a bit of an ad-libber, Dad, it's the actor in him: 'It was just under Rathcown Rock that Peterkin slew the wicked gipsy Gerard, using a length of industrial curtain track on him. There was nothing left of poor old Gerard, who worked as a linotype operator in his spare time after working as a pirate. The tropical birds resembled cockies up Canberra-way, the way the things dived at anything resembling spouting, and ate their way straight through a man's hard-saved-for particleboard. But Peterkin fought savagely on, ever on he did, and it wasn't long before he sat his sister Robbyn on the dog's back, similar to what they done in Peter Pan, and it wasn't long before calm was restored to Rathcown Rock, that three-pointed isle bigger than the Melbourne Cricket Ground, plum-centre in the South Pacific Ocean.' And he falls asleep on the pillow next to me. Boy does he snore. The joys of public school education... It was all rather unintellectual, the old shy state school: more the pursuit of chuckles than capitalism. I sailed through Bubs at the age of none. The infantiale sun sung us to blond sleep. Miss Dusting hit the chalk out of her duster with a daggy ply wooden ruler; and I saw dust motes get between her eyes, which were crossed. She was a bit of a turn-on. 'Now class,' she says sweetly. 'It's time now of course for your favourite topic: Sleep. Let's do Morning Sleep together.' Obedient as Vita Brits under fresh cold milk, we