PraiseThis is an utterly frank and darkly humorous novel about being young in the Australia of the 1990s. A time when the dole was easier to get than a job, when heroin was better known than ecstasy, and when ambition was the dirtiest of words. A time when, for two hopeless souls, sex and dependence were the only lifelines. |
Contents
Section 20 | 146 |
Section 21 | 154 |
Section 22 | 165 |
Section 23 | 183 |
Section 24 | 189 |
Section 25 | 191 |
Section 26 | 198 |
Section 27 | 214 |
Section 9 | 74 |
Section 10 | 78 |
Section 11 | 87 |
Section 12 | 99 |
Section 13 | 103 |
Section 14 | 109 |
Section 15 | 116 |
Section 16 | 120 |
Section 17 | 124 |
Section 18 | 130 |
Section 19 | 133 |
Section 28 | 216 |
Section 29 | 219 |
Section 30 | 224 |
Section 31 | 229 |
Section 32 | 234 |
Section 33 | 252 |
Section 34 | 256 |
Section 35 | 264 |
Section 36 | 269 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acid afternoon ANDREW MCGAHAN anyway asked asthma bastard beer bottle Brisbane C'mon called cancer cervical cancer cigarette climbed clitoris condoms cortisone couch cunt Cynthia Dave door drank drinking drunk face feel felt fingers flat Frank fucking genital warts going gonna Gordon Gordon Lightfoot hair hand happened hayfever head Helen heroin hour hurt It'd Jesus kissed knew Lambrusco laughed legs Leo and Molly looked Maree masturbated morning mouth moved never nice night okay parents penis picked prick pulled Queensland Rachel rissoles rolled Scrabble screamed shit sleep slid smoked Social Security someone Sophie sorry stared started stop Story Bridge sucked sure talked There's things thought told tonight took ugly vagina Vass Ventolin waited walked warts watched TV week What's woke woman wondered worried would've wrong yelled
Popular passages
Page 231 - Maybe it's a matter of sincerity. I'm never that certain of anything I feel about a person, and talking about it simplifies it all so brutally. It's easier to keep quiet. To act what you feel. Actions are softer. They can be interpreted in lots of different ways, and emotions should be interpreted in lots of different ways.
Page 268 - The bodies were the important things. They were real. The people were real. They thrust and bounced and the raw flesh gurgled. You could see what humanity was all about.
Page 253 - I wasn't there for sex or love. I was there for adoration. Self-abasement. The impulses were all diseased, rooted in darkness.
Page 228 - It was bad now, but it'd get better. Something could be saved. Something had to be saved.
Page 19 - My prick had no guts. It couldn't take over my brain like pricks were supposed to.
Page 117 - that she cared for me more than anyone else in the world.
References to this book
Integrity and the Fragile Self Damian Cox,Marguerite La Caze,Michael P. Levine No preview available - 2003 |