I micro-reviewed the Australian classic for The Lifted Brow a few years back.

204 pages – feels like a short read.

Schoolteacher goes on a dark bender in an Australian desert town.

Mood: Hot, dark and claustrophobic. The hazy mash of inebriation. Trapped in a car with foul men. Face to face with a stabbed kangaroo.

Best sentence: Things half remembered and terribly feared, shrieked at him; tears of mystic terror rimmed his eyes.

Previous review: “A classic novel which became a classic film. The Outback without the sentimental bulldust. Australia without the sugar coating.” Robert Drewe

Funfact: A keen amateur lepidopterist, Cook established the first butterfly farm in Australia on the banks of Sydney’s Hawkesbury River in the 1970s.

Best Australianism: “What the blazes…”

Suggested food pairings: Overdone steak from a hot bonnet. Lashing of cold beer.

Four of my columns are featured in Frankie’s new anthology ‘Something To Say.’ I talk about graffiti, grandpas and growing down.

• A piece I wrote will be in the new book Letter To My Teenage Self published by Affirm. It’s been collated by a Melbourne schoolgirl to confront bullying. It includes contributors such as Maggie Beer, Peter Alexander and Kate Ceberano. Icecream, PJ’s & Bedroom Eyes.
• I also have a piece kicking in Copyfight, released last year.
• I’m performing at Coburg Carnivale as The Bedroom Philosopher. Sep 21, 22 at 7:30. Tickets HERE.