Coach Fitz, by Tom Lee

Coach Fitz is the debut novel of Sydney author Tom lee – and it’s seriously good fun.  Serious in the way that the novel depicts the very serious business of running while also satirising the ‘wellness’ and ‘self-improvement’ industries, while the sly mockery of self-obsession reminded me of Dave Hughes and his deadpan delivery of comedy that punctures self-importance.

The narrator Tom is a narcissistic young man wholly absorbed in over-analysing his own obsessions.  When the novel opens he is hoping to get over his most recent failure with girls (Alex, in London) by improving his body-image (an obsession since adolescence), so he engages the services of an eccentric coach to help him improve his marathon performance.  Coach Fitz is an expert in psycho-babble, and her unique take on running is that training should involve mindfulness about the running tracks.  Readers familiar with the city of Sydney will enjoy the detailed (and quirky) descriptions of…