Henry Goes Bush

by Wayne Marshall

The price of genius is one hell of a hangover.

When Henry Lawson - New South Wales' most promising young writer and a budding alcoholic - is banished from Sydney to 'find the real bush', he hopes for fresh material and a new start. Instead, he stumbles into a mind-bending collision of myth, politics and madness on the edge of the Darling River.

Henry Goes Bush reimagines Lawson's fateful 1892 exile to Bourke as a surreal, action-packed journey through the birth of Australian identity. Blending fact with fiction, this novel plays with the very idea of history - exploring creativity, colonialism and masculinity through the eyes of a man haunted by his own legend, flailing for connection and on a quest to find a better version of himself while being pitted against a poet gunslinger who goes by the name of The Rider.

Wayne Marshall's debut novel cements his reputation as one of Australia's most dazzling writers, an unforgettable slice of insightful weirdness. This is Peter Carey meets David Mitchell in the outback - a remake of Wake in Fright by the directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once - a richly layered, darkly comic exploration of how the same stories that make nations can ruin their tellers.

284 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2026

Reviews

[Seán Coireall M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

They said this yarn was a ripper,
A real good laugh on the run,
Like the writer’s last bush story
That had plenty all undone.
But I trudged through every chapter
With a face as dry as dust
While the mob all roared with laughter,
I just read on out of trust.

There were winkin’ lines and wisecracks,
Little nudges sly and dry,
But the punchlines passed straight by me
Like galahs across the sky.
Maybe I’d missed the rhythm,
Maybe I weren’t in the game,
But I finished none the wiser
As to why the others came.

[Erin Cook]

This was great, so fun and imaginative. I'm going to be telling sooo many people to read it. Was a little bit insane by how often people 'grin' or are 'grinning' by the end tho.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

To borrow a word from Kim from Reading Matters, Wayne Marshall's debut novel Henry Goes Bush is bonkers. It is also immensely entertaining.

The novel links the Australian tradition of 'tall tales and true' with what appears to be a factual narrative about Henry Lawson's 1892 trip inland to Bourke, and a surreal narrative of hallucinatory events which begin with Lawson disappearing down a tunnel somewhat like the one in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Except that unlike that strange wonderland of crazy characters and unpredictable but curiously logical magic, (and also unlike the complex architecture of Italo Calvino's 1972 endlessly inventive  Invisible Cities ) Lawson finds himself in a duplicate of the town of Bourke up above, and the people who inhabit it are the same as the ones in the real Bourke, and that includes a double? doppelganger? like himself. Not only that, but Lawson enters and retreats from this underground Bourke multiple times, and on one occasion surfaces to find himself confronting a Gulliver-like giant in the waters of the Darling River.

In real life, Lawson (1867-1922) was by the time of these events, one of Australia's best loved poets and author of short stories.  He was published by The Bulletin,  a magazine which featured politics (of the jingoistic, anti-imperialist, republican, racist variety), and was very effective in creating a mythology of 'the bush' by publishing bush poets and storytellers such as Lawson, Ernest Favenc; Vance Palmer; Steele Rudd; and Banjo Paterson (who plays a major role in Marshall's novel). 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/05/29/h...

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to start? No one can accuse Marshall of playing it safe and sticking to a template with this utterly unique story, which is (incredibly) loosely based of the ‘bush ballad’ feud between Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson of the late 19th century.

The beginning of the book is quite interesting, with the likeable but unreliable and hopeless Lawson being sent by his publisher to Bourke to both get him away from the temptations of Sydney, and to hopefully bring him around to a romantic view of the bush (as the readers apparently crave).

Things get strange when he uncovers a mysterious glowing tunnel which, as it happens, takes him to an alternate Bourke where things are superficially the same, but undeniably ‘off’. I originally thought this could have been a dissociation from the troubled and lonely Lawson, or possibly the effects of another bender. As it happens, this is just one version of Bourke - further trips into the mystical tunnel revealing new characters and contexts, with Lawson (and the reader!) having to figure out what exactly is going on.

To be honest, I’m glad the blurb makes no mention of this supernatural aspect because I think it’s incredibly unlikely I would have bought the book, with that sort of theme not at all being of interest to me previously. There were times where I struggled to follow the plot and I can’t say I loved the addition of the giant, which, in another setting, would have spoiled the story for me. It’s a testament to Marshall and his book though that it pulls together very well and the characters - the flawed but sympathetic Lawson especially - make this a compelling tale.

[Becs' reads Australia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry goes bush by Wayne Marshall
⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was quite a different book than what I was expecting. Often a little unhinged and at times I was confused by what was going on- hallucinations, nothing was what I thought or read.

I felt I was often going back and forth, that I eventually lost interest at times and hoped all would make sense at the end. However Im still left with questions unanswered.

"In 1892, New South Wales' most promising writer and least promising teetotaller, Henry Lawson, is banished to Bourke to 'find the real bush'. The goal: sober up, gather fresh material, and stop being such a disappointment. But what Australia's favourite literary son discovers in the river town is less a glorious national frontier than a collective nervous breakdown.

History records this as the trip that defined his career. Wayne Marshall records it as a surrealist action movie where Lawson must outrun his own myth and a gunslinger known as The Rider, aka Banjo - a poet significantly better at being a legend than Henry is.

Henry Goes Bush confronts the madness that lies behind our colonial dreaming - a moment where history is a hallucination and 'the bush' a phantasmagoric theme park. A reality in which The Bulletin's famed poetry wars are an actual shootout on the banks of the Darling River."

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was absolutely wild and I really loved it!! I don't know what was real and what was fiction. I'm so intrigued to learn more about Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson now.

[Joe Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

ludicrous and zany but with a profound sense of heart and genuine interest in its characters’ inner worlds . Marshall’s imagining of Henry Lawson triggered the ‘Harry du bois’ alarm in my brain and therefore immediately gained some brownie points.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1892 J F Archibald, publisher and editor of the Sydney newspaper The Bulletin, promoted a debate between Australia’s best known and best loved poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson. Lawson’s poetry spoke of the hardships endured by people living in the outback, while Paterson’s poems were all about the romantic beauty and heroic challenges of life in the bush. Archibald had a couple of problems with Henry, however, one being that Henry had never been any further out of Sydney than Bathurst; and the other, more importantly, was Henry’s drinking which, by the time Henry was twenty five, was out of control. In an attempt to solve both problems, Archibald had Henry brought to his Sydney office where he gave him five pounds and a train ticket to Bourke, where he was to try experiencing the real bush and so coming up with more poems to add to the debate.
In Henry Goes Bush, Wayne Marshall imagines a weird and wonderful version of Henry Lawson’s time in Bourke. Obviously, it is going to be up to everyone who reads the book to come up with her or his own interpretation of Henry’s psychedelic adventures. I’ve decided Henry was suffering delirium tremens, but then again, his friends weren’t, were they? I’m not a profound enough thinker to solve the mysteries in the book but I do know that I enjoyed every page of this kind of colonial Australian Alice in Wonderland meets The Wizard of Oz. I had my own rather battered collection of Henry Lawson’s books from my long ago childhood days but, sadly, they were destroyed in a flood three years ago.

There is just one thing I would suggest to Wayne Marshall: pack up a copy of this book and send it to Quentin Tarantino immediately. I’ve already seen the movie in my head but it needs to get out into the world.

[Garth Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wayne Marshall’s gonzo ride through the foundations of Australia’s national identity is a rare, off the hook beast in the generally staid world of Aussie letters.

It’s a high concept jaunt full of pathos, sparring with the colonial origins of a country that doesn’t seem to have evolved as far as you’d have hoped.

[Rozanna Lilley]

This is quite a lot of fun. I'm always amazed by the number of places Henry Lawson's name turns up. 'Another Lawson plaque!', I exclaim to my husband. I enjoyed the conceit of this most peripatetic of men moving through a kind of back of beyond multiverse. It is accessibly picaresque. The ending is sentimental but perhaps that's right for a blokey novel celebrating mateship and resurrecting the giant that was, and still is, Henry Lawson. Watch out for flashing lights ...

[Madeleine Laing · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think knowing a bit more about Henry Lawson/Australia at the turn into the 20th Century would have made this even impressive, but as it is I found the mix of satirical historical fiction and sci-fi really fun, suprising and moving, if a little stretched out at the end.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing premise that never quite lived up to the blurb.

[sightlined · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok that was extraordinarily fun

[Katie Steuerwald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd book. Not at all what I expected. Sort of history, sort of fantasy.

[Gavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully weird. Starts as an apparent description of Henry Lawson's trip to Bourke - but then develops into a weird speculative Bourke with different versions of reality connected by tunnels that change every now & then. Love the concept. Mostly loved the book - but found the middle section a bit too overblown & drawn out.