It’s Australia’s bicentennial year, Brisbane’s hosting the international expo, and Gordon’s life is going nowhere. He’s written a novel that went nowhere, is crap at sex and filled with inadequacy at his lack of prowess, works in a bottle shop, and rents a room in a house otherwise filled with students from China. When Wayne, a fledgling artist supported by his parents, mentions a short-term post in the Territory with the Weather Bureau it seems like a great idea – six months away from everything, to focus on writing and to sort himself out. But nothing goes as planned – the weather station post only needs one person to take three hourly round the clock readings, the accommodation’s crap, and the isolation gets to them both.
A prequel to McGahan’s acclaimed (and not yet read by me) first novel Praise, 1988 is both exhausting and inert – nothing happens, either in the plot or to Gordon. He and Wayne coexist, and grow to hate one another in a desultory fashion; they work their way through the weed, smokes and vast quantities of grog; neither achieves either of their creative goals; and the whole experiences is coloured by sexual inadequacy and related angst, apathy and inertia.
The most interesting thing is the very end, when Gordon meets a barmaid and I sensed a beginning – which makes sense now that I see on the back jacket that it’s a prequel, but at the time I read it (about fifteen minutes ago) seemed like it was where the story should have started. Because if this, and because I loved Underground, the first McGahan novel I read, and quite enjoyed Last Drinks, I’m going to give Praise a bash. Watch this space. - Alex
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