MID SIZE SOFT COVER-WILL COMBINE BOOKS TO SAVE POSTAGE IF POSSIBLEThe Gift of Speed is a 2004 novel by Australian author Steven Carroll. It is the second in a sequence of novels, following The Art of the Engine Driver and followed by The Time We Have Taken.
 
The history of his summer is written in the grass...In 1960 the West Indies arrive in Australia, bringing with them a carnival of music, colour and possibility. Michael, who is sixteen, is enthralled. If, like his heroes, he has the gift of speed, he will move beyond his suburb into the great world.And yet, as his summer unfolds, Michael realises that there are other ways to live. When the calypso chorus accompanying Frank Worrell and his team fades, Michael has learnt many things; about his parents, his suburb, a girl called Kathleen Marsden, and about himself