Rose Boys: Text Classics

Robert Rose was a promising cricketer and footballer in the mould of his father, Bob, Collingwood's greatest player. Robert's brother, Peter, was on the way to a literary career as a poet and later a publisher.

On St Valentine's Day in 1974 a terrible car accident changed the Roses forever. For the next quarter century Robert Rose lived as a quadriplegic.

Rose Boys is Peter Rose's portrait of his brother. It is a heartbreaking account of a family united and ravaged by misfortune: a story of love, courage and endurance.

This bestselling memoir comes with a new introduction by Brian Matthews.

Peter Rose grew up in Wangaratta, Victoria, and is principally known as a poet and memoirist. His first book of poetry, The House of Vitriol, appeared in 1990. His fifth collection, Crimson Crop, won a Queensland Literary Award in 2012. In 2001 he published a family memoir, Rose Boys, about his late brother Robert, who was an outstanding sportsman before a car accident left him a quadriplegic. Rose Boys was a bestseller and won the 2003 National Biography Award. Rose is also the author of two novels, A Case of Knives (2005) and Roddy Parr (2010). He has twice edited the annual anthology The Best Australian Poems and is a frequent reviewer; his literary journalism has appeared in many publications. Throughout the 1990s he was a publisher at Oxford University Press. Since 2001 he has been editor of Australian Book Review.

'A book of immense emotional force that is a eulogy to his brother, a tribute to his parents and a powerful demonstration of the redemptive quality of suffering.' Meanjin

'A deeply felt, passionately uplifting story.' Weekend Australian

'A deep family story of suffering, love and passionate devotion, richly and freshly told.' Helen Garner

'Rose Boys is an intimate and moving - though never maudlin - story of familial love...often simple, sometimes rich and lyrical, and always cliche free.' Time

'I'm not sure when I last came across someone who has written so powerfully about death.' Martin Flanagan, Age