The Boy in the Green Suit – An Innocent Abroad In the Middle East

Review by Philip Blazdell

The Boy in the Green Suit – An Innocent Abroad In the Middle East

It is 1965. Robert Hillman, a mere 16 years old (and one that is, in his own words, exceptionally dim) is planning an extraordinary adventure. Deserted by his mother, disliked by his stepmother, and puzzled by his father, Bobby needs comforting. His life in rural Victoria has offered no solace; his job at Melbourne's Myer Emporium, selling ladies' slippers, offers no prospects. So he does what any confused and lonely teenager would do: he escapes.

Boarding a ship bound for Ceylon, he begins his search for paradise, inspired by his father's stories of a fabled island in the Indian Ocean. Bobby sets sail armed with youthful optimism and a green suit, carrying a suitcase full of books and a typewriter. He has no money, no return ticket and, seemingly, no worries. He imagines the island he is heading for to be inhabited by beautiful, full-breasted women who will caress him while he writes prize-winning stories in the style of Chekhov.

What follows is an amusing, honest and, ultimately moving account of an innocent abroad. Put ashore not in Ceylon but in Athens, Bobby barters his way to Istanbul, Tehran, and Kuwait, lurching from slums and brothels to an implausible job at a ritzy hotel in Shiraz. Finally, a long haul through the desert ends in a jail term on the Pakistan border where, ironically, he finds the affection and acceptance that have always been the true objects of his quest .

This is no ordinary travel book and it is likely that long after you turn the last page you will be wondering what Hillman is doing now or how his life proceeded after this staggering trip. Hints of a life beyond the green suit pepper the text and these serve the make Hillman a much more sympathetic and real protagonist.

Much of the real charm in this book comes from Hillman's incredible optimism and resilience in the face of adversity. In Greece he is given the choice of repatriation to Australia or working as a dishwasher in a youth hostel; in Turkey, 'joyless and dull', the virginal lad envies the casual sex that befall other backpackers; in Kuwait he almost sells his body to a groping general, while in Iran, then under the Shah, he is jailed on immigration charges and witnesses the appalling treatment meted out to clerics and leftists persecuted by the US-backed regime. In the Iranian desert the down-at-heel teenager swaps his green suit jacket for a bowl of bean paste, yet 'never for a second felt that I was anything other than a tourist.'

Later, he recalls, 'My thoughts penetrated far enough into the lives of the people around me to register if they were rich or poor or very poor, and no further. I was an Australian on an adventure - ill-conceived though it was.'

He was ever mindful of the long shadow cast by his faraway (in both senses) father: 'It occurs to me now that both the burdens I carried around the world - the need to keep my little pink hands from staying too clean; the need to make it big with dusky women - were strapped across my shoulders by my father.'

'He could have made things a lot easier for me if he'd just taken the time to say, 'Best thing, have fun,' he adds whilst waiting for bus in the Persian desert.

To Hillman, the green suit was the key. Its gaucheness symbolized all that young Robert was at the time.

'I thought I was pretty cool in this green suit," he said in a recent interview, 'but really all it did was make me look like a tall green grasshopper'.

'The long, thin stove-pipe pants were too short, and I thought it was really cool to wear white tennis socks with the suit. But I had really skinny legs and in reality it was not the right look at all.'

Reality was something to which the latter-day Candide was completely oblivious:

'I was so completely unaware then of things, so completely naive, the whole thing could have been catastrophic. I was in lots of situations that could have ended in grief. But somehow my innocence, I think, was what saw me through.'

It is this innocence, which shines through every page of this wonderful memory, that makes this book so rewarding and moving. This is, quite simply, a wonderful book and one to be enjoyed time and time again.

• The Boy in the Green Suit – An Innocent Aboard In the Middle East by Robert Hillman