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Displaced Person
Graeme Drury is seventeen. He is rather an ordinary-looking person of average height. He dresses casually and well and gets along fine with his classmates and friends. In fact the typical all-rounder.
The change begins gradually. More and more he feels that people are ignoring him. Why? Waitresses, tram conductors, even his parents and girl friend, are looking right through him as if they can hardly see or hear him.
And as he becomes indistinct to them, they and their world become grey and faint to him. Is he going mad? What's going on?
In this disturbing story Lee Harding has moved a little away from the straightforward science fiction novels with which he has made him name to create a contemporary hero with whom we can identify as he grapples with his psychological adventure.
The change begins gradually. More and more he feels that people are ignoring him. Why? Waitresses, tram conductors, even his parents and girl friend, are looking right through him as if they can hardly see or hear him.
And as he becomes indistinct to them, they and their world become grey and faint to him. Is he going mad? What's going on?
In this disturbing story Lee Harding has moved a little away from the straightforward science fiction novels with which he has made him name to create a contemporary hero with whom we can identify as he grapples with his psychological adventure.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
3 people are currently reading
298 people want to read
About the author
Lee Harding
48 books8 followersLee John Harding is an Australian author, founder of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club and published in Science Fantasy Magazine, New Worlds and Science Fiction Adventures. He used the name of Harold G. Nye as a pseudonym for some of his works and has won the Ditmar Award, the Alan Marshall Award, the Australian Children´s Book Award and the Australian Science Fiction Award. ' to 'Lee John Harding is an Australian author, founder of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club and published in Science Fantasy Magazine, New Worlds and Science Fiction Adventures. He used the name of Harold G. Nye as a pseudonym for some of his works and has won the Ditmar Award, the Alan Marshall Award, the Australian Children's Book Award and the Australian Science Fiction Award.'
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 29, 2017
I read this in high school in the 1980s, it was probably the best set reading we did. It left an impression on me and I decided to track it down and read it again (no mean feat as it's out of print and very hard to come by)
So glad that I did - every bit as powerful as it was over 30 years ago.
So glad that I did - every bit as powerful as it was over 30 years ago.
June 16, 2016
Bleak. Unsettling. Depressing.
This short book reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone.
The teenage narrator gradually loses his grasp on the 'real world', slipping into some
'nether' world, coexisting with others yet unable to communicate with them: family, girlfriend, people at large.
He writes with a maturity that belies his young age. We witness his arduous journey and cheer when
he meets two others stricken with the same plight - inhabitants of a strange, grey world they dub Limbo. But the horror doesn't end there . . .
Displaced Person is a grim, emotional read: grief and alienation are its core. It might well be
relevant as an allegory of the dangers of disaffectation in a rapidly techno-infested world.
This short book reads like an episode of The Twilight Zone.
The teenage narrator gradually loses his grasp on the 'real world', slipping into some
'nether' world, coexisting with others yet unable to communicate with them: family, girlfriend, people at large.
He writes with a maturity that belies his young age. We witness his arduous journey and cheer when
he meets two others stricken with the same plight - inhabitants of a strange, grey world they dub Limbo. But the horror doesn't end there . . .
Displaced Person is a grim, emotional read: grief and alienation are its core. It might well be
relevant as an allegory of the dangers of disaffectation in a rapidly techno-infested world.
October 23, 2018
I learned about Misplaced Persons, also published as Displaced Person, by Australian author Lee Harding (1979) from a wonderful list by the always-eldritch Mike Davis from The Lovecraft eZine in his fantastic post of “Lovecraftian Novels I Recommend.” His recommendation was so compelling that I started looking for the novel, and the majority of the reviews I found said similar things: the reviewers had remembered the novel from their young adult days and, after tracking it down for a rereading decades later, found it to be equally compelling if not more so. After reading this work, I totally understand why it stayed with readers. It will haunt me for a long time to come.
One day the protagonist, an Australian teen, realizes that people don’t really see him anymore. He places an order at McDonald’s that never gets filled; his girlfriend seems to look right through him; he comes home to find his parents having dinner without him. What’s more, sounds fade, and even the posters on the wall of his bedroom lose their color. I hesitate to say more, because the journey is both so fantastic and so utterly relatable that you deserve to experience it on your own. Suffice it to say that this short book goes there, unflinchingly, with an impact. Cosmic horror? Definitely.
Here’s a quote:
Was it possible that my life, up to now, had been no more than a dream, that the reality I had known had been but a pretense, and that I was about to embark upon some mysterious metamorphosis?
If you take a word – any simple, ordinary, everyday word – and repeat it over to yourself often enough you will soon discover that it loses all meaning; sheer repetition robs any word of our familiarity with it. And could it be so with life itself?
I thought these were very wild, very bold thoughts for someone like myself, who had never worried much before about existence. And they were not uplifting. As I walked out of Flinders Street Station and viewed again the sickly wasteland of the city, I wondered if I was indeed mad, or if I had been displaced from an older order of reality… and placed in another.
This can be easily read in one or two sittings. Highly recommended!
One day the protagonist, an Australian teen, realizes that people don’t really see him anymore. He places an order at McDonald’s that never gets filled; his girlfriend seems to look right through him; he comes home to find his parents having dinner without him. What’s more, sounds fade, and even the posters on the wall of his bedroom lose their color. I hesitate to say more, because the journey is both so fantastic and so utterly relatable that you deserve to experience it on your own. Suffice it to say that this short book goes there, unflinchingly, with an impact. Cosmic horror? Definitely.
Here’s a quote:
Was it possible that my life, up to now, had been no more than a dream, that the reality I had known had been but a pretense, and that I was about to embark upon some mysterious metamorphosis?
If you take a word – any simple, ordinary, everyday word – and repeat it over to yourself often enough you will soon discover that it loses all meaning; sheer repetition robs any word of our familiarity with it. And could it be so with life itself?
I thought these were very wild, very bold thoughts for someone like myself, who had never worried much before about existence. And they were not uplifting. As I walked out of Flinders Street Station and viewed again the sickly wasteland of the city, I wondered if I was indeed mad, or if I had been displaced from an older order of reality… and placed in another.
This can be easily read in one or two sittings. Highly recommended!
August 28, 2013
Graeme is a normal teenager living a normal life, until, gradually, people just stop noticing him. At first, he can't get served at McDonalds. If he screams and makes a scene, he can get people to take brief notice of him. But soon, even his parents and his girlfriend stop seeing him and forget he ever existed. Plus, the world around him is slowly fading to gray.
Soon he can't even pick things up. He can walk through walls. It's like he's floating, with a blurry gray world barely visible around him. After a day or so of paralyzing loneliness, fear, and confusion, he starts to notice other things that have popped into this "greyworld," as bright and clear as he is among the sludgy, faded backdrop. A single rose. A seagull, dying of hunger. Soon he meets another person, a man, who slipped into the greyworld a month ago. This man brings him to a decrepit, forgotten house, an island of substance in the greyworld where he's been living with a young woman who slipped in a couple weeks ago. They scavenge for the little food they can find, and try to imagine what could have happened to them.
Is it a problem with the world? With them? Did everyone on earth forget about them? Is God a shoddy bookkeeper who lost track of them? Are they being messed with by aliens?
I won't tell you how it ends, but it is scary as fuck. And then...just kind of strange and creepy. You don't really get any answers, and that's just fine.
I don't know if it's just me and my personal insecurities and phobias, but I LOVED this book. The horror and existential dread I felt while reading it was palpable.
Soon he can't even pick things up. He can walk through walls. It's like he's floating, with a blurry gray world barely visible around him. After a day or so of paralyzing loneliness, fear, and confusion, he starts to notice other things that have popped into this "greyworld," as bright and clear as he is among the sludgy, faded backdrop. A single rose. A seagull, dying of hunger. Soon he meets another person, a man, who slipped into the greyworld a month ago. This man brings him to a decrepit, forgotten house, an island of substance in the greyworld where he's been living with a young woman who slipped in a couple weeks ago. They scavenge for the little food they can find, and try to imagine what could have happened to them.
Is it a problem with the world? With them? Did everyone on earth forget about them? Is God a shoddy bookkeeper who lost track of them? Are they being messed with by aliens?
I won't tell you how it ends, but it is scary as fuck. And then...just kind of strange and creepy. You don't really get any answers, and that's just fine.
I don't know if it's just me and my personal insecurities and phobias, but I LOVED this book. The horror and existential dread I felt while reading it was palpable.
January 7, 2022
I read this book when I was in my early 20s. I really liked it at the time so I kept it on my bookshelf. Now the paper has yellowed, and the old-fashioned slang and phrases have dated it.
Nevertheless, the concept and plot are still relevant and interesting.
This story has a blend of philosophy/existentialims and a smidge of science fiction (don't let that put you off). The protagonist (17-year old Graeme) gradually and inexplicably disappears into a grey muted world, parallel to our colourful real-life. He can no longer connect to the real world and starts to question his existence and sanity until he meets two other people who have been "displaced" too.
As to be expected with fantasy/SF plots, some suspension of belief is required by the reader, but on the whole, the story is well constructed and thought out. Set in Melbourne, it moves at a steady pace in sympathy with the protagonist's experience. I really engaged with him - except I just couldn't believe that it was a 17-year old narrating the story. His vocabulary was not what you'd expect from a teenage male; it was too sophisticated. And sometimes, I thought he should be behaving differently around the female who was close in age - but perhaps the author wanted to avoid making it into some kind of romance. His behaviour oscillated between brotherly, fatherly and friend, verging on boy-girl attraction. Distractingly weird.
This book was first published in 1979 and won the Australian Children's Book Award in 1980.
Having read the story twice as an adult, I am not sure that it could be called a children's book, particularly in this millenium.
Nevertheless, the concept and plot are still relevant and interesting.
This story has a blend of philosophy/existentialims and a smidge of science fiction (don't let that put you off). The protagonist (17-year old Graeme) gradually and inexplicably disappears into a grey muted world, parallel to our colourful real-life. He can no longer connect to the real world and starts to question his existence and sanity until he meets two other people who have been "displaced" too.
As to be expected with fantasy/SF plots, some suspension of belief is required by the reader, but on the whole, the story is well constructed and thought out. Set in Melbourne, it moves at a steady pace in sympathy with the protagonist's experience. I really engaged with him - except I just couldn't believe that it was a 17-year old narrating the story. His vocabulary was not what you'd expect from a teenage male; it was too sophisticated. And sometimes, I thought he should be behaving differently around the female who was close in age - but perhaps the author wanted to avoid making it into some kind of romance. His behaviour oscillated between brotherly, fatherly and friend, verging on boy-girl attraction. Distractingly weird.
This book was first published in 1979 and won the Australian Children's Book Award in 1980.
Having read the story twice as an adult, I am not sure that it could be called a children's book, particularly in this millenium.
April 22, 2023
Originally published in Australia as Displaced person in 1979 this is one of the books that has stayed with me so I decided to reread it this year. Took me a while to track down a copy as it has had a name change (Misplaced persons) but it was worth it as the story still resonates today, especially in this age of social media where ironically people often feel more isolated and alone. (Covid19 has exacerbated that even further).
Graeme Drury is seventeen. He is rather an ordinary-looking person of average height. He gets along fine with his classmates and friends. In fact he is the typical all-rounder.
The change begins gradually. More and more he feels that people are ignoring him. Why? Waitresses, tram conductors, even his parents and girl friend, are looking right through him as if they can hardly see or hear him.
And as he becomes indistinct to them, they and their world become grey and faint to him. Is he going mad? What's going on?
Graeme Drury is seventeen. He is rather an ordinary-looking person of average height. He gets along fine with his classmates and friends. In fact he is the typical all-rounder.
The change begins gradually. More and more he feels that people are ignoring him. Why? Waitresses, tram conductors, even his parents and girl friend, are looking right through him as if they can hardly see or hear him.
And as he becomes indistinct to them, they and their world become grey and faint to him. Is he going mad? What's going on?
November 8, 2019
I spent a hundred (or thereabouts) years trying to find this book despite not remembering the title or the author from when I read it in primary school (upon re-reading I wonder why the heck this was set for us in primary school). Finally did & wellllll, I think I hyped it up a bit much in my mind. I found the heavy exposition hard to get through and didn't particular like the characters. The end was the most fascinating (and unexpected) part. I like the concept more than the execution I think. I feel like it was only just beginning to get to what the story could've been when it ended.
December 29, 2016
This book was a life-changer for me. The feeling of being invisible resonated with my teenage shelf, who was struggling with feeling so very different from those around me. It is one of those books that stayed with me for the coming decades. So much so that, in my late 40's, I hunted down a copy. Looking forward to re-reading it...
May 28, 2010
after rediscovering Lee Harding, haven read one of his books in elementary school, I was curious to read more. I was surprised to find "Misplaced Persons" just as haunting and intriguing as "The Fallen Spaceman" was to me, all those years ago.
March 1, 2015
Really enjoyed the concept of this book. Now I know where my socks go in the wash. Used this in schools a lot through the 80s. Excellent book for motivating reluctant readers, particularly boys. Good for lower middle school readers.
Read
October 26, 2012I just loved this book when I was 'riding the adolescent hormonal roller coaster'. Well worth a read imho
August 12, 2016
I just loved this book in my early teens. I still remember it every time I can't find a sock. A great read!
April 10, 2015
This novel was one of my all time fave books as a teenager! I must have read it ten times already :-)
not-in-pima-okc-wi-but-want
November 22, 2022a "lost book" from someone who found it effective & affective and haunting when a teen and wants to reread it now
wishlisted on pbs
wishlisted on pbs
May 15, 2021
Started: March 20, 2021, finished April 7th 2021
The concept of this book is very interesting, and I am waiting to force this book on anyone who is willing to listen.
The concept of this book is very interesting, and I am waiting to force this book on anyone who is willing to listen.
April 3, 2025
EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT
For fans of Lee Harding’s haunting novel Displaced Person, we have just published the 12th edition, an e-book version, now available on Amazon Kindle.
Coming soon to Apple Book and Google Books.
Please let everyone know, let’s grow the fan base and celebrate this work of art.
Madeleine Harding
For fans of Lee Harding’s haunting novel Displaced Person, we have just published the 12th edition, an e-book version, now available on Amazon Kindle.
Coming soon to Apple Book and Google Books.
Please let everyone know, let’s grow the fan base and celebrate this work of art.
Madeleine Harding
November 24, 2018
A throwback to the dense style of writing that predominated my teenage year. What can I say abou the actual text? I found the main character unlikeable, so it was a hard upward push to get the book finished. The actual concept was sound, but just not compelling for me.
November 6, 2020
This was my favorite book as a child!!!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews