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A Rising of the Lights
'The cure for loneliness causes loneliness. That's the human condition.'
In a reeling world of fraudsters and hypnotists, sleep talkers and estranged twins, false alibis and second chances, Rusty Wilson is beset on all sides by mysteries. Why was his childhood decided by a throw of dice, why has his wife confessed to a lover, and why do his parents no longer wish to see him?
When Rusty loses his job to an AI system, Edwina, the mercurial friend of his youth, finds him a new role as an oracle to the young. But how can he advise anyone on what it means to be human when artificial consciousness appears within reach? If it's all just one more con, it's not clear who's scamming who. Besides, should any of it matter to Rusty, when all he wants is for those he loves to love him back?
What holds a life together when everything is coming apart?
An audacious comic lament for a world that no longer knows itself, A Rising of the Lights traces Rusty's descent - or perhaps his ascent - to the wonder of his true self.
In a reeling world of fraudsters and hypnotists, sleep talkers and estranged twins, false alibis and second chances, Rusty Wilson is beset on all sides by mysteries. Why was his childhood decided by a throw of dice, why has his wife confessed to a lover, and why do his parents no longer wish to see him?
When Rusty loses his job to an AI system, Edwina, the mercurial friend of his youth, finds him a new role as an oracle to the young. But how can he advise anyone on what it means to be human when artificial consciousness appears within reach? If it's all just one more con, it's not clear who's scamming who. Besides, should any of it matter to Rusty, when all he wants is for those he loves to love him back?
What holds a life together when everything is coming apart?
An audacious comic lament for a world that no longer knows itself, A Rising of the Lights traces Rusty's descent - or perhaps his ascent - to the wonder of his true self.
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First published January 1, 2026
About the author
Steve Toltz
5 books1,164 followersSteve Toltz (born in 1972) is an Australian novelist.
Toltz graduated from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1994. Prior to his literary career, he lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Barcelona, and Paris, variously working as a cameraman, telemarketer, security guard, private investigator, English teacher, and screenwriter.
A Fraction of the Whole, his first novel, was released in 2008 to widespread critical acclaim. It is a comic novel which tells the history of a family of Australian outcasts. The narration of the novel alternates between Jasper Dean, a philosophical, idealistic boy, who grows up throughout the novel and his father, Martin Dean, a philosopher and shut-in described at the start of the novel as "the most hated man in all of Australia". This is in contrast with Terry Dean, Jasper's uncle, whom Jasper describes as "the most beloved man in all of Australia". The novel spans the entirety of Martin's life and several years after (a range never specified in the text, but starting after World War II and ending in the early 2000s), and is set in Australia, Paris, and Thailand.
The novel has repeatedly been compared favorably to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces. A Fraction of the Whole was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and the 2008 Guardian First Book Award.
Toltz graduated from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1994. Prior to his literary career, he lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Barcelona, and Paris, variously working as a cameraman, telemarketer, security guard, private investigator, English teacher, and screenwriter.
A Fraction of the Whole, his first novel, was released in 2008 to widespread critical acclaim. It is a comic novel which tells the history of a family of Australian outcasts. The narration of the novel alternates between Jasper Dean, a philosophical, idealistic boy, who grows up throughout the novel and his father, Martin Dean, a philosopher and shut-in described at the start of the novel as "the most hated man in all of Australia". This is in contrast with Terry Dean, Jasper's uncle, whom Jasper describes as "the most beloved man in all of Australia". The novel spans the entirety of Martin's life and several years after (a range never specified in the text, but starting after World War II and ending in the early 2000s), and is set in Australia, Paris, and Thailand.
The novel has repeatedly been compared favorably to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces. A Fraction of the Whole was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize and the 2008 Guardian First Book Award.
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April 14, 2026Steve Toltz’s new novel sacrifices its story at the altar of the gag:
There’s an old rumour that Nikolai Gogol, the author of Dead Souls, cackled in his study deep into the night as he wrote his satire of imperialist Russia. Reading Steve Toltz, I imagine something similar: the writer snorting with laughter as each epigram types itself into being.
Toltz is often described as a satirist, but he is really a comedian. In his novels, hapless characters bumble through situations beyond their control. He portrays narcissists, misanthropes and oddballs with improbable dreams and cynical worldviews. His greatest trick is filling his novels with every personality type you’d desperately avoid at a party. They are, in short, great fun.
And yet I left Toltz’s new novel, A Rising of the Lights, battered and weary. His comic style, meant to dazzle with incisive wit, settles in as the novel’s default mode. Toltz sacrifices everything – social commentary, character development, the sentimental found in the absurd – at the altar of the gag.
Readers of Toltz’s 2007 debut A Fraction of the Whole know what to expect: wisecracking dialogue, weird dysfunctional families, eccentrics galore.
A Rising of the Lights begins with Rusty Wilson suffering an abrupt mid-life crisis. His childless marriage ends after his wife leaves him for an Uber driver. He loses his HR job in a government department to an AI efficiency scheme. And his divorced octogenarian parents Gordon and Sigrid, withering away in separate aged-care facilities, suddenly restrict Rusty’s visiting rights.
Alone, and suffering from a mysterious stomach ailment (the “rising of the lights” from which the novel borrows its title), Rusty suspects he may die soon. Why bother carrying on at all?
Like the passive Istvan from David Szalay’s Booker-winning Flesh, Rusty is “devoid of ambition”: he lets life happen to him. Forces intervene – his estranged twin sister, an old school friend, his parents – to drag him through life.
When Rusty becomes the career counsellor at a private school, he bombards captive students with pseudo-interpretations of philosophers and here the novel gestures towards a fear for the future. Rusty fires off typical “Toltzian” bizarro analogies: “Society is like a memory foam … I advised them not to live a life in order to narrate it … They’d need to accept being, at all times, a spiritual infant and a corpse-in-waiting.”
This humour is really a type of linguistic slapstick. Instead of banana peels and pratfalls, Toltz’s characters trip over their deliberately clumsy and humiliating worldviews. A Rising of the Lights arrives at that strange cultural juncture when artificial intelligence has stepped over the boundaries of science fiction and become a subject of contemporary realism. By way of its premise and targets, the novel suggests that it will reckon with the AI “jobpocalypse”, Australia’s aged-care system crisis, and the fever pitch rhetoric of polycrisis. The targets are all in his line of sight.
These domains are all worthy of critique, but they’re really just the comic stages upon which his characters perform. Toltz does have a good ear for one-liners, but delivered without tonal variation, trapped in a ceaseless vortex of wits, I wished that occasionally he would put all jokes aside.
While the novel skirts over other areas worthy of serious lampooning – elements that are already embedded in the story and its time – it is Toltz’s full-scale embrace of aphoristic chatter that leaves me worn out. On every page you can hear the author’s own laughter. But the jokes come so thick and fast that there’s hardly a moment to take a breath and wonder what we’re laughing about.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/cult...
There’s an old rumour that Nikolai Gogol, the author of Dead Souls, cackled in his study deep into the night as he wrote his satire of imperialist Russia. Reading Steve Toltz, I imagine something similar: the writer snorting with laughter as each epigram types itself into being.
Toltz is often described as a satirist, but he is really a comedian. In his novels, hapless characters bumble through situations beyond their control. He portrays narcissists, misanthropes and oddballs with improbable dreams and cynical worldviews. His greatest trick is filling his novels with every personality type you’d desperately avoid at a party. They are, in short, great fun.
And yet I left Toltz’s new novel, A Rising of the Lights, battered and weary. His comic style, meant to dazzle with incisive wit, settles in as the novel’s default mode. Toltz sacrifices everything – social commentary, character development, the sentimental found in the absurd – at the altar of the gag.
Readers of Toltz’s 2007 debut A Fraction of the Whole know what to expect: wisecracking dialogue, weird dysfunctional families, eccentrics galore.
A Rising of the Lights begins with Rusty Wilson suffering an abrupt mid-life crisis. His childless marriage ends after his wife leaves him for an Uber driver. He loses his HR job in a government department to an AI efficiency scheme. And his divorced octogenarian parents Gordon and Sigrid, withering away in separate aged-care facilities, suddenly restrict Rusty’s visiting rights.
Alone, and suffering from a mysterious stomach ailment (the “rising of the lights” from which the novel borrows its title), Rusty suspects he may die soon. Why bother carrying on at all?
Like the passive Istvan from David Szalay’s Booker-winning Flesh, Rusty is “devoid of ambition”: he lets life happen to him. Forces intervene – his estranged twin sister, an old school friend, his parents – to drag him through life.
When Rusty becomes the career counsellor at a private school, he bombards captive students with pseudo-interpretations of philosophers and here the novel gestures towards a fear for the future. Rusty fires off typical “Toltzian” bizarro analogies: “Society is like a memory foam … I advised them not to live a life in order to narrate it … They’d need to accept being, at all times, a spiritual infant and a corpse-in-waiting.”
This humour is really a type of linguistic slapstick. Instead of banana peels and pratfalls, Toltz’s characters trip over their deliberately clumsy and humiliating worldviews. A Rising of the Lights arrives at that strange cultural juncture when artificial intelligence has stepped over the boundaries of science fiction and become a subject of contemporary realism. By way of its premise and targets, the novel suggests that it will reckon with the AI “jobpocalypse”, Australia’s aged-care system crisis, and the fever pitch rhetoric of polycrisis. The targets are all in his line of sight.
These domains are all worthy of critique, but they’re really just the comic stages upon which his characters perform. Toltz does have a good ear for one-liners, but delivered without tonal variation, trapped in a ceaseless vortex of wits, I wished that occasionally he would put all jokes aside.
While the novel skirts over other areas worthy of serious lampooning – elements that are already embedded in the story and its time – it is Toltz’s full-scale embrace of aphoristic chatter that leaves me worn out. On every page you can hear the author’s own laughter. But the jokes come so thick and fast that there’s hardly a moment to take a breath and wonder what we’re laughing about.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/cult...
May 14, 2026
A comical fever dream, featuring an incredibly dysfunctional family.
July 23, 2026
It’s not a marvellous novel, but it is genuinely witty and entertaining. He remains more of a comedian or absurdist than a true novelist, but he finally comes close to his deadpan masterpiece A Fraction of the Whole again.
September 13, 2026
من شاید خیلی به صورت حرفه ای نتونم ریویو بنویسم ولی من واقعا ذات الریه رو دوست داشتم درسته که به نظرم هنوز جز از کل بهترین کتاب استیو تولتز هست ولی دنیای استیو تولتز همیشه من رو در خودش غرق می کنه و انگار در قلم اش یک پر لطیف داره که روی قلبت رو لمس می کنه
April 29, 2026
The only reason I finished this book was that I was away, and didn’t bring a second book with me.
Reading this book was like taking a bad acid trip combined with being stoned,
It was lucid, depressing, occasionally funny, but overall depressing and pointless.
Not my style at all
Reading this book was like taking a bad acid trip combined with being stoned,
It was lucid, depressing, occasionally funny, but overall depressing and pointless.
Not my style at all
May 28, 2026
Love this writer, but the characters really are just so unlikeable 😔
July 6, 2026
I only add around one book a year to me DNF pile and this book would have been it for 2026 if i hadn’t been reading it for one of my book clubs. It is one of the most tedious books I have ever had the misfortune to struggle through - not even slightly amusing and all of the characters were so unlikeable that I really didn’t care what happened to any of them.
At the subsequent book club discussion one person approached the book as satire and so found it quite amusing. The other 10 hated it and/or DNF it.
At the subsequent book club discussion one person approached the book as satire and so found it quite amusing. The other 10 hated it and/or DNF it.
June 26, 2026
This just dodged being on my DNF list, only because I had a morbid curiosity as to what would happen. Everyone in this story is so unlikeable and grating, it is kind of impressive how irritating they all are.
September 30, 2026
کی گفته بود این کتاب خیلی فوق العاده هست؟ در بهترین حالت معمولی رو به بد بود
May 13, 2026
This book is one chosen for our Book Grove club discussion. I am somewhat uncertain about my reaction to it. There were parts I definitely connected with while others left me disengaged or confused.
I particularly liked the focus on ageing and how AI can work against the needs of humans as can governments who require adult children to care for aging parents even if they seem or are ill equipped to do so.
The concluding actions of Rusty’s parents shone a light on how much attention or empowerment is given to elderly individuals to decide when and how they wish to end their human existence.
I particularly liked the focus on ageing and how AI can work against the needs of humans as can governments who require adult children to care for aging parents even if they seem or are ill equipped to do so.
The concluding actions of Rusty’s parents shone a light on how much attention or empowerment is given to elderly individuals to decide when and how they wish to end their human existence.
May 11, 2026
A Rising of the Lights
Completely bonkers.
Started with huge promise. Very, very funny dialogue.
Then I started to question. Why so much introversion? Should I care?
Decided not to care.
But had to get to the end of this bonkers book. It would not beat me.
Wish it had.
Completely bonkers.
Started with huge promise. Very, very funny dialogue.
Then I started to question. Why so much introversion? Should I care?
Decided not to care.
But had to get to the end of this bonkers book. It would not beat me.
Wish it had.
April 20, 2026
"Rusty. You'll always be the strangest person I know."
Steve Toltz. You'll always be the strangest person I don't know, and the strangest writer I've ever read. In a good way.
I'm a sucker for a weird book with edgy, unhinged characters that find themselves in absurd situations. And the characters are likeable.
You know what else I like? No forward, no acknowledgements, no author's note. Just the story. Yay.
Steve Toltz. You'll always be the strangest person I don't know, and the strangest writer I've ever read. In a good way.
I'm a sucker for a weird book with edgy, unhinged characters that find themselves in absurd situations. And the characters are likeable.
You know what else I like? No forward, no acknowledgements, no author's note. Just the story. Yay.
August 26, 2026
The son of two highly dysfunctional parents stumbles his way into middle age with few emotional connections.
First of all, it was the beautiful, striking cover art that drew me to this book in the first place, but that’s where the fun ended for me.
The protagonist, Russell, spoke in little more than quips, which by the end of the novel was incredibly wearing. It seemed neither realistic, nor possible, that every first response from his mouth should be either a caustic or self-deprecating barb. Surely there was more to him than that, even with the shit life he was given by grotesque parents.
The side characters were better, except for his mother and father, and particularly the father, whose voice I never want to hear again.
There were some chuckle-worthy moments, but for half the novel I wasn’t even sure of the purpose of its existence. At least by the second half a story began to emerge, but what a grind it was to get there. I couldn’t get to the end of the audiobook fast enough.
I’m curious as to who would enjoy this novel - the protagonist, Russell, seemed to be the worst kind of straight guy, so I find it difficult to believe women would enjoy reading it, and, in fact ditto for straight men. Otherwise it seems like it was designed for a very niche audience - upmarket, cafe-swilling, Sydney, 30-somethings, sporting man buns and plenty of rings. I guess that’s Sydney inner-city metrosexuals and no one else.
Normally an author’s writing quality might at least save the day for a novel like this, but Toltz’s style just wasn’t to my taste. It was functional, basic, without much flourish or style.
Sorry. I know how much effort goes into writing and publishing a novel, but the only real credit here should go to the cover designers … to whom I’d also like to say SCREW YOU for tempting me to read this book in the first place!
First of all, it was the beautiful, striking cover art that drew me to this book in the first place, but that’s where the fun ended for me.
The protagonist, Russell, spoke in little more than quips, which by the end of the novel was incredibly wearing. It seemed neither realistic, nor possible, that every first response from his mouth should be either a caustic or self-deprecating barb. Surely there was more to him than that, even with the shit life he was given by grotesque parents.
The side characters were better, except for his mother and father, and particularly the father, whose voice I never want to hear again.
There were some chuckle-worthy moments, but for half the novel I wasn’t even sure of the purpose of its existence. At least by the second half a story began to emerge, but what a grind it was to get there. I couldn’t get to the end of the audiobook fast enough.
I’m curious as to who would enjoy this novel - the protagonist, Russell, seemed to be the worst kind of straight guy, so I find it difficult to believe women would enjoy reading it, and, in fact ditto for straight men. Otherwise it seems like it was designed for a very niche audience - upmarket, cafe-swilling, Sydney, 30-somethings, sporting man buns and plenty of rings. I guess that’s Sydney inner-city metrosexuals and no one else.
Normally an author’s writing quality might at least save the day for a novel like this, but Toltz’s style just wasn’t to my taste. It was functional, basic, without much flourish or style.
Sorry. I know how much effort goes into writing and publishing a novel, but the only real credit here should go to the cover designers … to whom I’d also like to say SCREW YOU for tempting me to read this book in the first place!
June 17, 2026
3.5 stars rounded up to be generous.
It's more Steve Toltz as you know him, although I feel like his books have been getting less manic and more dark as they progress. A Fraction of the Whole is still my favourite, and I'd say this one is probably his weakest. I think it's also the shortest? Perhaps Steve is running out of steam, that's a bit what it feels like. He's still full of zingers, but they're not his best work. He's ageing as his protagonists are ageing, and perhaps he's tired and spent as they are tired and spent.
This one is a sequence of loosely connected farcical events covering many of his favourite themes like family, purpose, fitting in, examining life and trying to make the most of it. I'm totally on board with all of that and I'm happy for him to keep returning to the same well. There's still more material there and he still puts it all in a way that only he can, his wit is still very much on show even if it's toned down a bit. Where the last book reflected on the covid pandemic, this one mentions "AI" and while the author definitely knows his stuff, there's not really anything too insightful in this area. It's nice to have our modern times reflected back at us, but it didn't add much.
What was jarring was reading something that felt obviously Australian, not shying away from local references... only to trip on Americanisms like "closet", "flashlight", and one floor up being the "second floor". What the fuck Steve? It's so incongruous. Did I get the US-ified version or is he just writing like this now? Stop that.
Anyway, I was happy to read more of my favourite Australian author, but I hope he earns enough to go take a big holiday so he can come back with renewed vigour for the next one.
It's more Steve Toltz as you know him, although I feel like his books have been getting less manic and more dark as they progress. A Fraction of the Whole is still my favourite, and I'd say this one is probably his weakest. I think it's also the shortest? Perhaps Steve is running out of steam, that's a bit what it feels like. He's still full of zingers, but they're not his best work. He's ageing as his protagonists are ageing, and perhaps he's tired and spent as they are tired and spent.
This one is a sequence of loosely connected farcical events covering many of his favourite themes like family, purpose, fitting in, examining life and trying to make the most of it. I'm totally on board with all of that and I'm happy for him to keep returning to the same well. There's still more material there and he still puts it all in a way that only he can, his wit is still very much on show even if it's toned down a bit. Where the last book reflected on the covid pandemic, this one mentions "AI" and while the author definitely knows his stuff, there's not really anything too insightful in this area. It's nice to have our modern times reflected back at us, but it didn't add much.
What was jarring was reading something that felt obviously Australian, not shying away from local references... only to trip on Americanisms like "closet", "flashlight", and one floor up being the "second floor". What the fuck Steve? It's so incongruous. Did I get the US-ified version or is he just writing like this now? Stop that.
Anyway, I was happy to read more of my favourite Australian author, but I hope he earns enough to go take a big holiday so he can come back with renewed vigour for the next one.
May 18, 2026
Gritty Aussie story similar to Trent Dalton's writing.
May 1, 2026
3.75 stars
September 9, 2026
Absurd and darkly funny
August 2, 2026
Toltz has done it again! An absolute fever dream of a book. Yet still so relatable
September 8, 2026
Absurd and entertaining, with a heartening full circle ending.
May 7, 2026
A big fan of Steve Toltz's books and am always happy to see another come out. Its a good sign for Australian publishing that his spiralling characters, with their deeply thought and scathingly humorous philosophical perceptions on the nature of life and society, (inherited and evolved mindsets which ultimately misalign them with the very society they want to be a part of, or at least understand, but only if it could meet them on their own terms and then somewhere along the way instead work out that they are, or find their way to being, a part of this gloriously varied humanity thing anyway, take a breath... that these kinds of character driven stories) can find a place on store shelves makes me happy.
September 9, 2026
Steve Tolz loves a loser. He is very clever and quite funny. I enjoy his books a lot.
June 13, 2026
Steve toltz, nuff said
October 4, 2026
I laughed out loud as I read this book . He is so funny, acerbic and witty . I had to stop and re-read some of his lines , and wondered how long it took him to come up with them . EG “ I used to want what everyone wanted : to be entrancing enough to have a stalker , successful enough to have a nemesis , rich enough to have a sponger , and famous enough to have a sycophant ….but now I wasn’t so sure”. I wondered as I read this , what kind of mind does he have ? What’s his creative process for writing a novel? Does he read widely and learn everything he can about our current political & economical climate , and save up little nuggets of observations as he travels through life ? He’s so sharp & satirical. I loved the nod to Greek mythology Orpheus & Eurydice . I did wonder what on earth this book was about though . It’s weird . It’s definitely about a dysfunctional family, and his overwhelming sense of loneliness. The last few chapters are increasingly weird and I felt he LITERALLY “lost the plot” ( get it ? ) . I don’t mind weird though & good on him for writing something truly different .
July 12, 2026
Steve Toltz has a particular style, which has endured, since I tried reading A Fraction of the Whole in 2009. I have to confess, for me, it feels a bit adolescent, and I felt bad about that until I read a published review saying the same thing. But I did want to look beyond the style and find the substance and I think with this novel I better understood the existential angst he explores and his wry, sardonic style of humour. The novel is a wild ride, a dark dystopian comedy, that makes the reader reflect on the powerful influence of family dynamics on identity and also on the male loneliness epidemic. It brings a particular Australian sensitivity to the ruminations and I think many readers will feel jolts of recognition at various characters and circumstances. There is also some interesting commentary on our brave new world in this age of AI and digital innovation and on how that impacts our identity and social dynamics.
September 17, 2026
The risks and benefits of AI is an issue that seems to be everywhere at the moment, so Steven Toltz's latest novel A Rising of the Lights is certainly topical.
Like Toltz's previous novels, this one is tragicomic, and it's also exhausting. There are so many quirky one-liners that it slows down the pace of reading just to admire them. But the plot moves securely through the humour to reveal a narrator called Rusty who is deeply melancholic in a world that seems to have no place for him. Separated from his sister Bonnie when his parents split up so that he had no contact with either of them, somehow it falls to him to look after both of them in their old age because Bonnie is nowhere to be found.
Financially, that's hard enough but when his job as a child therapist is supplanted by AI, it can only get worse. And it does...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/09/17/a...
Like Toltz's previous novels, this one is tragicomic, and it's also exhausting. There are so many quirky one-liners that it slows down the pace of reading just to admire them. But the plot moves securely through the humour to reveal a narrator called Rusty who is deeply melancholic in a world that seems to have no place for him. Separated from his sister Bonnie when his parents split up so that he had no contact with either of them, somehow it falls to him to look after both of them in their old age because Bonnie is nowhere to be found.
Financially, that's hard enough but when his job as a child therapist is supplanted by AI, it can only get worse. And it does...
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/09/17/a...
May 20, 2026
I mostly really enjoyed this book some very funny lines in it and absurd situations written hilariously. Rusty comes from a broken home… in a rather unusual way with the most eccentric couple of parents who are now both in nursing homes until they are not and Rusty and his estranged sister are required to look after them. Parents who they barely know. This comes at a time when everything has gone wrong in Rusty’s life, relationship, job both going down hill. Rusty then becomes reacquainted with some childhood friends who are all eccentric in their own ways.
Steve Toltz has a dark sense of humour which I loved and the hapless character of Rusty was well written. I did find the ending a bit far fetched but generally the novel told the stories of a unique bunch of misfits in an engaging and entertaining way.
Steve Toltz has a dark sense of humour which I loved and the hapless character of Rusty was well written. I did find the ending a bit far fetched but generally the novel told the stories of a unique bunch of misfits in an engaging and entertaining way.
June 8, 2026
Like all Toltz’s other works this too is a meditation on death but more contemporary and less fanciful than his other tomes. It’s funny and sad often at the same time whilst remaining relevant as a piece of its time.
I like this author very much and don’t want to give too much away with my commentary save for the fact that a dark wit permeates throughout and I know everybody will get a little chunk of empathy for at least one character. Maybe even more than one given the variety of experiences that they endure.
Give it a go and see too if you favour any character over another or are they all just detestable and loveable at the same time.
Certainly that’s how I found it …
I found it a few other things too but that will spoil it and I have no plans to ruin anyones sojourn into novel world.
A solid four stars.
I like this author very much and don’t want to give too much away with my commentary save for the fact that a dark wit permeates throughout and I know everybody will get a little chunk of empathy for at least one character. Maybe even more than one given the variety of experiences that they endure.
Give it a go and see too if you favour any character over another or are they all just detestable and loveable at the same time.
Certainly that’s how I found it …
I found it a few other things too but that will spoil it and I have no plans to ruin anyones sojourn into novel world.
A solid four stars.
June 23, 2026
I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Although it wore me in the strangest way. It was darkly funny but at times filled me with dread. Perhaps menacing is the right word?
The story centres around Rusty, a half orphan with a crumbling life. He had a twin sister who acquired custody of his dad at a young age, while he inherited his mother. At mid life he finds himself even more adrift than usual.
Shenanigans unfold. Including breakups, firings, karaoke crime coverups, an old friend turned love interest, sex atop a cursed buried bell, a secret labyrinth in a custom-built school, state enforced elder care, an AI deep fake, parental enemies hurtling together again.
It was a wacky ride. I like the idea that AI systems correct themselves but that humans don’t necessarily. I think Rusty did, kind of.
The story centres around Rusty, a half orphan with a crumbling life. He had a twin sister who acquired custody of his dad at a young age, while he inherited his mother. At mid life he finds himself even more adrift than usual.
Shenanigans unfold. Including breakups, firings, karaoke crime coverups, an old friend turned love interest, sex atop a cursed buried bell, a secret labyrinth in a custom-built school, state enforced elder care, an AI deep fake, parental enemies hurtling together again.
It was a wacky ride. I like the idea that AI systems correct themselves but that humans don’t necessarily. I think Rusty did, kind of.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 10, 2026
Bought at Sydney Writers’ festival and started reading immediately. And I laughed out loud in Surry Hills library and on public transport right from the beginning. I’d say it’s an amusing tale of a dysfunctional family centred on a mid 50s guy whose I don’t give a fuck attitude is escalated when his wife leaves him. The back story of his childhood is hilarious. I just managed to get a bit cooler on it towards the end when I really didn’t know what this book was ultimately saying. I hat a little hiatus nearing the end and sped read it to finish. Maybe not doing it justice…I thought it was comically clever but didn’t land me anywhere very different except he now has a life with an old friend he’s always been in love with probably. I don’t know…3.5 stars?
May 21, 2026
Funny, contemporary, sad and true all at once. We are sometimes so blind to our own minds. We long for connection but even in sex, we cannot escape realising that no one can share our thoughts and feelings. Now we have AI, hoping it would understand us. But nothing can rid of the feelings of jealousy, greed or dreams but…ourselves. Nothing seems to be worth while to sacrifice for anymore. Children can be decided by the roll of the dice. There is no value other than money value anymore. We might as well be AI.
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