In the New Country

by David Foster

When a man dressed in a gorilla suit wins the City to Surf long-distance run in Sydney, the nation is intrigued. How could an unknown athlete, encumbered by a preposterously hot and heavy disguise, outstrip some of the world's finest runners, and why did he disappear so mysteriously afterwards?
It's not a conundrum that much bothers Adam Hock, Yarrawongamullee's finest entrepreneur and indomitable promoter of tourism in the forgotten towns of Knocklofty, Crooked Corner and Ballymeaner. What with the pressures of organising the High School Class of '61 Reunion and welcoming home from America the area's most famous son, Grammy Award-winning country and western singer Dud Leahy, Ad Hock has more than enough on his plate. Yet when Detective Harley Christian follows the gorilla's footsteps right back to the heart of the Irish New Country, Ad is forced to concede that even the best-laid plans can go awry...

Genres: Australia, Fiction

213 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

David Manning Foster (born 15 May 1944) is an Australian novelist and scientist. He has written a range of satires on the theme of the decline of Western civilization, as well as producing short stories, poetry, essays, and a number of radio plays.

Foster writes in an Australian tradition of idiosyncratic satire and comedy that may be traced through the work of Joseph Furphy, Miles Franklin, Xavier Herbert and David Ireland. His novels are the most wide-ranging and fearless of the Australian novels that have contributed to the late twentieth-century re-examination of Western ideologies and the literary forms in which they are expressed. ('Foster: The Satirist of Australia' by Susan Lever)

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

let me tell ya, it is not an easy task searching online for books by an author named david foster. actually that's a nice bit of metonymy w/ respect to the reading experience itself: like the fiction of certain other david fosters i could name, this is demanding stuff, w/ big swaths of unattributed dialogue, abstruse australian slang ("motza"?), a cast of rural knuckleheads referred to indiscriminately by first/surname/nickname, & you better have either an abiding interest in or strong stomach for the minutiae of bushfire prevention & firing ceramics. but then also you've got a rich vein of low comedy -- i dare you to read the eulogy of mike hock in public & not make a spectacle of yourself giggling -- plus some cutting satire of the tourism industry, religious mores, etc. idk anyone irl who would have the patience for this, but you there, internet person: give it a go!

[Theoneandonly]

Glorious novel, full of wit and wisdom, and a new author to chase. Upon reading Gerald Murnane, I assumed that Australia (any normal country, in fact) could not possibly produce a contemporary writer of the same stature, but I may be proven wrong. His novels are now high in the to-read list.

The previous reviews only show why the crowdsourcing of literary critique is an abject failure by definition. Stating that is the only reason that moved me to write this review.

Blessed be those that know to enjoy the delirious imaginations of David Foster.

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird extended ramble with some amusing moments but I struggled with this, not least because of the stupid joke names, The almost complete lack of female characters, and the bizarre vocabulary. And all the time in the back of my mind the knowledge that I’d only picked the book up in the first place as I mistook it for some obscure novel by David Foster Wallace that I hadn’t heard of before.

It isn’t.

To save you reading it here is the best joke: have you seen how fast a New Zealand horse can run? That’s because they’ve seen what happened to the sheep.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have some serious questions for the 1996 Miles Franklin committee

[Shirley Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fast moving novel for me. I'm not sure I understand all the things that happened, but it was interesting and quite funny, too. Can you picture a man dressed in a gorilla suit winning the City to Surf long-distance run in Sydney? A mystery to be solved for sure!