Review: After The Siren by Darcy Green

I have, let’s say, a slightly antagonistic relationship to Australian rules football. I’m the petulant person who, in the days before the Grand Final, will answer the question of ‘Who are you going for?’ with ‘Who’s playing?’; the person who no longer has a fake response to the inevitable south east Australian question of ‘Who’s your team?’. Some of the reasons for my nonplussed-ness are long-standing and more appropriate for the therapist’s couch. But others are plain for all to see. From racism to domestic violence, the AFLM can represent the worst of the cult of white Australian masculinity.

Then there’s the homophobia, and the endless discussions over who will be the first to “come out”. There are probably fewer queer people in the AFLM than in the general population (having self-selected out of a code that doesn’t welcome them, unlike the AFLW, which is miraculously opposite), which suggests that the game has a structural problem, notwithstanding perhaps rather overzealous attention on the behaviour of individuals.

All of which is to say that Darcy Green’s horny-sweet rom-com is, fascinatingly, also a fantasy. After The Siren opens with 24-year-old Theo Bestavros watching his number-one ranked fail in his previous season, a missed goal after the final siren that would have won the game for the Sharks. Despite the fumble, he’s been transferred to the Falcons (“they’re all scary birds”, notes his best friend Priya). Battling anxiety, he’s also faced with his nemesis, Jake Cunningham, the Falcon’s “pest-in-chief” who appeared alongside an unflattering skit about Theo on the footy commentary show. He’s also hot, his Insta grid is “Home and Away … if it was directed by Lil Nas X” (that’s Priya again). The stage is set for an enemies-to-lovers romp on the footy ground, as Jake and Theo tumble their way through training, the new season, and into each others’ arms.

Delightfully, Jake and Theo aren’t anomalies in Green’s world. Jake’s mum, development coach Kat, Priya, the AFLW players that the Falcons train and hang out with, even two of Jake and Theo’s closest teammates are queer (“I appreciate all the stars in the gender constellation,” says one of them). The major straight character is a beautiful empath who brings herbal teas on a service tray to his teammate’s beds when they’re under the weather. Even Jake and Theo’s eventual relationship has a utopian sheen, between the lingering build-up, conversations about consent, and even the way their bodies move in the bedroom and on the field. Jake’s almost immediate desire for Theo, despite their antagonism, is hilariously horny:

His dick … was not being chill. Mainly, Jake blamed the yoga. Bestavros was good at yoga. Really good at yoga. He practised every morning, before breakfast, in a corner of the courtyard clearly visibly from where Jake liked to eat. [Teammate] Xen had nearly had to call an ambulance when Bestavros moved into some sort of pretzel position just as Jake took a sip of coffee.

Later, when things get hot and heavy, Green evokes the ecstasy of first experiences:

Theo ran two fingers over his lips, Jake opened his mouth for them, eager, and Theo was going to die.

Neither Jake (gay) nor Theo (bi, “theoretically” at the start of the novel, less theoretically by the end) are out; Jake’s previous boyfriend left him for his refusal to declare his sexuality. The question of coming out hangs uneasily over the novel; the paradox of “being out” is that everyone should feel safe to do it, but noone should have to. But its conclusion is undeniably affecting and inspiring — it may not have healed my relationship to the AFLM, but like all good rom-coms should, it definitely stirred and soothed other heartbreaks. It may be fantastical, but here is a masculinity to aspire to.

Gay rating: 5/5 for queer characters, relationships, sex and themes.