Tigers on the Beach Doug Macleod

Tigers on the Beach
                                                        Doug Macleod

SYNOPSIS:
A novel about how comedy unites and divides us, from the award-winning author of The
Shiny Guys and The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher.

Have you heard the one about the guy who lost a grandfather, but found a girlfriend? It's
funny. It's also kind of sad. And some of the bits that are sad are also kind of funny (but only
if you laugh at that sort of thing).

Adam thinks Samantha could be the one for him. But first he has to sort out his parents'
crumbling marriage, stop getting into embarrassing situations involving public nudity, find
out what's making his gran so angry, stop his little brother doing something really, really
dangerous and work out what's so funny about two tigers on a beach. It can't be that hard, can
it?

WRITING STYLE
 An insightful and highly relatable teenage male protagonist - a teenage 'everyman'.
 A great Australian country town setting full of eccentric but relatable characters.
 Subplot relating to sustainability and development relates well to the national curriculum
 Superb characterisation - the readers will really come to care about each of the characters,
  enjoying the way their lives interweave, and their unique perspectives.
 Captures the funny, awkward and intense experiences of first love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doug MacLeod is a Melbourne writer of books and TV. In 2008 the Australian Writers'
Guild awarded him the Fred Parsons award for contribution to Australian comedy. (He has
worked as a writer on shows such as Fast Forward and SeaChange, and as script editor on
three seasons of Kath and Kim.)

He also devised and co-wrote the animated series Dogstar, which has been screened all over
the world. Doug received two Australian Writers' Guild awards for his scripts for series one,
as well as the inaugural John Hinde award for science fiction. His best known book is Sister
Madge's Book of Nuns, which started as a practical joke on a publisher. He left his full-time
TV job in 2002 to focus on writing books for young adults. So far he has had seven novels
published by Penguin. The most recent are The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher, a CBCA
Honour Book in 2012 shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and the
Aurealis Awards, and The Shiny Guys, shortlisted for the 2013 CBCA Book of the Year
Awards. One of his novels, The Clockwork Forest, was presented as a play by The Sydney
Theatre Company in 2008, and in 2013 wrote Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert, a
musical about the life of Margaret Fulton.

dougmacleod.com.au/

EDITORIAL COMMENTS
This book is a sweet, sensitive story of a teen boy dealing with the loss of a much-loved
grandfather and the problems associated with first love, but it deals with these themes
through the unique metaphor of jokes. The book questions why we don't all laugh at the same
things and what our sense of humour reveals about us. It explores how humour can highlight
our differences but it can also give us common ground. The writing is funny, sensitive,
surreal and honest. The main character, Adam, is an awkward, funny, sensitive teenage boy
struggling to find common ground with his family and his new girlfriend.

It's a great story - a funny and poignant look at the difficulty (but also the joys) of accepting
difference and about the subjective nature of comedy. The way these themes are handled is
really well done - predominantly through the idea of jokes and laughter but in other subtle
ways too.

STUDY NOTES/ ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHERS
PRE READING

      What types of comedy can you think of?
            o Physical comedy
            o Sit-coms
            o Jokes / stand-up comedy
            o Cartoons
            o Black comedy
            o Puns etc
      Have students all share something they find funny. Can they explain to the class what
       it is that makes it funny?
      Why might it be hard to explain humour to others?
      Does everyone react the same way to this piece of humour?

     What influences the way we respond to humour?
            o Cultural differences
            o Personal experience
            o Knowledge of topic
            o Nuances of language etc
        Do people need to share a sense of humour in order to be compatible?

THEMES:

Family:
   How does Adam relate to his brother?
   In what way is Xander different?
   Many people with Asperger’s take things very literally. How might this cause
      problems with Xander sharing a house with Adam and his sense of humour?
   In what ways are Adam’s grandparents very different from each other?
   How does this affect their relationship?
   How does his parents’ relationship change when his grandmother moves in?
   Why does this happen?
   What characteristics does Xander share with his Grandpa?
   Adam dreams about his Grandpa and discusses his problems with him. What does this
      suggest about their relationship?
   How is Sam’s family different from Adam’s?
   How might that have shaped them into different people?
   How can Adam and Sam’s family situations be seen to influence their respective
      senses of humour?

Humour as a defence mechanism:

        Adam uses humour to help him deal with the boredom of his life, what he sees as his
         personal inadequacies and to avoid bullying. How can humour help in these
         situations?
        Many well-known comedians have faced difficult situations in their lives. Why might
         they have turned to comedy as a coping mechanism?
        We use black humour to deal with sad or difficult situations that we find hard to deal
         with. Consider the types of jokes that emerge shortly after any disaster, celebrity
         death etc. How does this type of humour help us to deal with the situation?
        Why do people often laugh when they are scared or nervous? Do they really find the
         situation funny?
        How does Adam react when Sam laughs when they are spreading his grandfather’s
         ashes? Do kind people laugh at horrible things? (p74)
        Why does Adam laugh when Sam’s chair falls off the stage? Why does she think he
         laughs?

Jokes:

        What is the difference between using humour and telling jokes?
        When might it be inappropriate to tell jokes?

   What is necessary in order for different people to all understand the same joke?
      Adam’s grandfather dies before telling him the funniest joke in the world. Would he
       ever have been able to tell Adam the world’s funniest joke? Why?

Situation Comedy:

      Sometimes it is not the words we say, but the situations we find ourselves in that
       provide the comedy. What funny things happen in the course of the novel (even
       though they may not be intentionally funny)?
      How is Grandpa’s funeral inadvertently funny? In what way might this be
       appropriate?
      Why might a situation be extremely funny for one participant and not for another?
      Sometimes the funniest things happen when no-one intended them to occur. In what
       way can this be seen to be true in this story?
      What do you think is the funniest situation in this novel? Why?

Relationships:

      How do Adam and Sam initially get together?
      What situations come between them?
      How is Adam different when he is not trying to be funny, such as when he is at the
       old people’s home?
      How do their tastes in humour differ?
      Does it matter if they like different jokes? Is a sense of humour a sense of humour no
       matter what specific humour you like?
      Why is Sam’s sense of humour so important to Adam?
      How does Sam use Adam’s sense of humour as an indication of his maturity levels? Is
       that fair?
      Is it hypocritical of Sam to break up with Adam for laughing when she falls off the
       stage given that she laughed when Grandpa’s ashes blew in his father’s face?
      What characteristics do Sam and Adam actually share? How can these be seen to be
       more important than a shared sense of humour?

The power of comedy

      How can comedy help to heal a situation?
      How can comedy bring people together?
      Study a daily television guide. What percentage of programs would be classified as
       comedies? What time of the day are they scheduled? Can you think of reasons for
       this?
      Some therapists believe in the power of humour so much that they have established
       laughter schools. Why is ‘laughter the best medicine’?
      How does humour ultimately bring Adam and Sam back together?

The danger of comedy:

      How can comedy be seen to be a dangerous thing?

   Given that not everybody interprets or reacts jokes in the same way, how can humour
       cause unintentional problems?
      Have you ever said or done something that was supposed to be funny, but backfired?
       What caused it to go wrong?
      How can people misunderstand a joke
           o Misread the ‘tone’
           o Interpret it literally
           o Perceive it as malicious
           o Cultural attitudes may interpret it as racist, sexist etc
           o Different political / religious / social beliefs
           o Personal experience of the things others are laughing at etc
      ‘Comedy is like music…there are lots of different kinds and not everybody is going to
       like the same thing. But people are more passionate about comedy than they are
       about music…..People get angry because they think they’ve been cheated out of a
       laugh.’
       ‘And laughing feels good.’
       ‘Yes.’
       ‘So when people don’t laugh when they’re expecting to -’
       ‘They feel bad. Even angry.’ (p123)
       Do you agree with this summation?
      There is a school of thought that says that the reason the jokes in Christmas bon-bons
       are so bad is so that no one feels they didn’t get the joke and missed out. Do you think
       this might be true?

CHARACTERS:
Many of the characters in this novel are really caricatures – exaggerated versions or
stereotypical characters we can readily identify.
     In what ways can each of the characters be seen to be a caricature?
     Why might the author have chosen to use exaggerated characters?
     How do these characters help to add to the humour of the story?

WRITING STYLE:

Foreword
This is a story about losing my grandfather and gaining a girlfriend. There are quite a few
jokes along the way, because my grandpa was that kind of person. You won’t like all the
jokes. I’m pretty sure of that, because I don’t like all of them. Jokes come in different shapes
and sizes, and most varieties are in this book. I hope that you like at least some of them. And
if anyone knows what is funny about a hippopotamus forgetting what day it is, please tell me.
I still haven’t worked that one out.
                                                                          Adam Cartwright

      Why did the author choose to use so many styles of humour in this novel?
      Why is it important that even Adam, the protagonist, doesn’t understand all of
       the jokes?

   Why is the title ‘Tigers on the Beach’ so appropriate? How does it sum up the
    different approaches to humour?
   What else might the book be called?