What do you think?
Rate this book
Bitin' Back
Mavis Dooley mother of twenty year-old Nevil (or 'The Nev' as he's affectionately known) is appalled and confused when her only son awakes and informs her that he's white and a woman. Not just any woman but the late twentieth century novelist Jean Rhys! Soon Nevil takes to wearing his mother's frocks and 'eyeshada'. Mavis wonders if her son is gay. She sets out to find an answer to Nev's crazy behaviour. Amidst all the lies and cover-ups, Mavis must use all her cunning abilities to keep the truth about Nev hidden. But soon the town's people start to suspect something amiss. Fearing the town's vicious retribution, should they uncover Nev''s secret, Mavis enlists the help of her brother Booty Dooley, bare-knuckle brawler - pig shooter, man's man. Booty takes one look at his nephew and asserts that he'll soon make a man out of him. Booty embarks on a pig- shooting trip,and a bare knuckle box up, figuring this will instill 'manliness' in his way toward nephew. However Nevil has
194 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2001
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
September 22, 2011
This book is brilliant. It is an amusing and interesting novel that addresses some very serious issues in a believable manner. It has a very skillful use of language and narrator to question the sterotyping of indigenous culture, homophobia, gender roles and violence without ever getting so serious that it feels as though the author is lecturing the reader. I highly recommend this novel, I couldnt put it down.
April 17, 2010
This is one of the worst books I've ever read. It's tricky to even begin, but I guess I'll mention that I didn't want to read it; it was assigned in class for some reason.
I don't have the book any more, so no specific quotes or anything. It follows Mavis Dooley, whose son Nevil, a star footballer, starts dressing and acting like a woman. They are Aboriginal Australians in what I think was a predominately white town. This did mean that at some points the narration was kind of cool--the narration in Mavis's voice was interesting, and in the hands of a better writer would've been fine. But Cleven writes like shit. Oh yeah and the name Nevil takes as a woman is Jean Rhys, who also sucked.
The dialogue for a lot of the characters feels like it should be delivered by chipper British schoolboys in acting class. "Well that's right Mrs Dooley you see your son blah blah blah blah." "Yep that's right, I'm leaving goodbye." Said with such pluck and all run together. I also remember the worst representation of dreams I've ever read. The interior monologue is full of blatant info just slammed into you, things a person would never need to think (and would probably not think, period--or at least not in such a coherent way). "Blah blah blah being a single mother and all" is the only sort of thing I can remember, but there was worse.
The plot itself just gets dumber, forces in some drug dealer shit with the intimidatingly-named Isaac Edge, ends with a "wow it was HIM all along" Scooby-Doo style ending, complete with a "you'll pay for this!" and maybe even "I would've gotten away with it too," plus what was pretty much a deus ex machina in the ridiculous hostage scene.
God I don't want to try and think of much more. This isn't a very good "review," or anything, just a half-assed justification for my 1-star rating.
I hate this dumb book. Don't read it.
I don't have the book any more, so no specific quotes or anything. It follows Mavis Dooley, whose son Nevil, a star footballer, starts dressing and acting like a woman. They are Aboriginal Australians in what I think was a predominately white town. This did mean that at some points the narration was kind of cool--the narration in Mavis's voice was interesting, and in the hands of a better writer would've been fine. But Cleven writes like shit. Oh yeah and the name Nevil takes as a woman is Jean Rhys, who also sucked.
The dialogue for a lot of the characters feels like it should be delivered by chipper British schoolboys in acting class. "Well that's right Mrs Dooley you see your son blah blah blah blah." "Yep that's right, I'm leaving goodbye." Said with such pluck and all run together. I also remember the worst representation of dreams I've ever read. The interior monologue is full of blatant info just slammed into you, things a person would never need to think (and would probably not think, period--or at least not in such a coherent way). "Blah blah blah being a single mother and all" is the only sort of thing I can remember, but there was worse.
The plot itself just gets dumber, forces in some drug dealer shit with the intimidatingly-named Isaac Edge, ends with a "wow it was HIM all along" Scooby-Doo style ending, complete with a "you'll pay for this!" and maybe even "I would've gotten away with it too," plus what was pretty much a deus ex machina in the ridiculous hostage scene.
God I don't want to try and think of much more. This isn't a very good "review," or anything, just a half-assed justification for my 1-star rating.
I hate this dumb book. Don't read it.
December 20, 2021
Read this for an English lit class. What an extraordinary novel, to say the least!! It's quite funny, yet it covers some serious themes, including bigotry and identity. Cleven employs these topics to scrutinise how race and identity in a small town impact an indigenous mother and her son. What a magnificent, wildly funny book! Well worth a read!!!
February 11, 2012
I thought this book was one of the funniest, quirkiest novels I have read in a long while. Although despite the out there humour, there's a serious undercurrent that touches on issues like racism, identity and gender. A fun, thoughtful read.Read it and laugh out loud!
April 1, 2016
An intense punch in the face, I found this book difficult to connect with but interesting. The characters lived the entire story at full volume, and I am concerned about the collective blood pressure of the whole town.
August 16, 2011
pretty hilarious so far. It is suprisingly australian.
February 19, 2025
Single mother Mavis has been raising her son on her own all these years. But when he declares his name is Jean, and starts wearing her dresses and make-up, she begins to question everything.
Jean seems to be Nevil's new preferred name, and Mavis just does not know what to do with this news. How does she explain to the people in town, down at the pub and at bingo, or her tough brother. What can she do to protect her boy, while he is going through whatever he is going through, from the footy boys, and the violent male dominated country folk, asking about Nev's pending role in the upcoming footy match?
It took me almost all of the book to finally realise what footy we were talking about! But Aussie small towns and our footy obsessions are pretty universal, no matter the shape of the ball and goals!
Themes of Blak identity, treatment by the police and authority, and some toxic masculinity, woven in with a battler Aboriginal family trying to do the best they can.
This is a roiling, romp of a read, with quirky characters, with First Nations' language woven through, a cast of endearing and questionable small town characters, connections and conclusions.
Jean seems to be Nevil's new preferred name, and Mavis just does not know what to do with this news. How does she explain to the people in town, down at the pub and at bingo, or her tough brother. What can she do to protect her boy, while he is going through whatever he is going through, from the footy boys, and the violent male dominated country folk, asking about Nev's pending role in the upcoming footy match?
It took me almost all of the book to finally realise what footy we were talking about! But Aussie small towns and our footy obsessions are pretty universal, no matter the shape of the ball and goals!
Themes of Blak identity, treatment by the police and authority, and some toxic masculinity, woven in with a battler Aboriginal family trying to do the best they can.
This is a roiling, romp of a read, with quirky characters, with First Nations' language woven through, a cast of endearing and questionable small town characters, connections and conclusions.
January 18, 2019
This wasn't a bad book but I think it could have been so much better. The concept was great but I feel it just fell short. One thing this author nailed was the characters and their voices, I really felt I was smack bang in a small Queensland outback town inhabited by both Aboriginals and 'White Fella's'. The story follows Mavis and her son Nev and shows the how because of your life's circumstances, your race, your sex, your low social economic standing and social standing you can think your life is all planned out for you. This is certainly what Mavis thought for her son, but Nev had other plans and the way he goes about shaking this up is original and at times very funny. I wish the writer had spent a little more time on this part of the story. I felt like they held back and really rushed the explanation at the end, but it was still an interesting story and worth a read.
December 13, 2019
One of the weirdest books I've ever read, full of small town homophobia, sexism and racism. Some difficult words to understand (and no use Googling it as it is in Australian slang - found myself thinking in that slang after a few hours). For a short book like this one it took long to get to the point and in the end it had nothing to do with anything. I do wonder if LGBTQ people will be offended by the book... Not a too bad story, but not really that good either
October 20, 2024
I would say that this book was disappointing, but you can't be disappointed by something you never thought would be good.
The writing was unimpressive, the characters two dimensional, the plot incoherent and just plain boring. The "twist" was laughable. I also can not get past the transphobic execution of the central theme of a "man dressing as a woman."
I am very surprised this was chosen as part of the indigenous classics series.
The writing was unimpressive, the characters two dimensional, the plot incoherent and just plain boring. The "twist" was laughable. I also can not get past the transphobic execution of the central theme of a "man dressing as a woman."
I am very surprised this was chosen as part of the indigenous classics series.
June 18, 2024
It was interesting to look at the ratings for this book. Five stars or one and not much in between. I gave it a five. I read it in two sittings and was sad when it finished wishing I was sitting at Mavis’s table eatin’ Tim tams. I thought it addressed serious issues in an amusing and real way. Very relatable to small town life I have experienced
January 28, 2025
Really liked the style and the dialogue, a lot of it felt genuine, but the book itself was so repetitive that it was twice as long as it needed to be, and the explanation for Nev as Jean Rhys was ridiculously unbelievable and massively disappointing.
May 23, 2021
Brilliantly funny. Definitely worth reading.
November 8, 2021
Absolutely loved this!
Did Not Finish
July 3, 2022This prize-winning is said to be hilarious, and it was made into a play, but... I didn't find it funny.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
July 16, 2022
Quite a funny, yet exhausting tale, considering it is about racism, sexism, homophobia, toxic masculinity and small town petty hatreds.
Read
August 31, 2026Really enjoyed this one.
June 29, 2011
Vivienne Cleven is a triple threat for this years challenges. She's an indigenous Queer Australian woman, which means that I can count her book against three challenges. Plus, she's an awesome writer.
I did find "Bitin' Back" a bit difficult to get through. I raced through the first fifty pages, captured by the dialogue and the life and the in-your-face-ness, but then I got bogged down by the difference between Mavis' attitude towards Nevil's presumed homosexuality and my own attitude. It wasn't until I began reading Marie Munkara's Every Secret Thing that I found the way to read Mavis Dooley. I think it's because I personalise things so very much; I kept internalising Mavis' issues and placing her opinions on myself. There was something in Munkara's book that reminded me to read Mavis as her own person without imposing her ideas on me.
I needed that distance from Nevil and Trevor and Mavis in order to be able to read this. The language, the art of writing in this book is absolutely first class. The topic was too close and that's what caused the issues in reading it, but the book itself is amazingly awesome, and I'm so very, very glad that I found my way through.
I did find "Bitin' Back" a bit difficult to get through. I raced through the first fifty pages, captured by the dialogue and the life and the in-your-face-ness, but then I got bogged down by the difference between Mavis' attitude towards Nevil's presumed homosexuality and my own attitude. It wasn't until I began reading Marie Munkara's Every Secret Thing that I found the way to read Mavis Dooley. I think it's because I personalise things so very much; I kept internalising Mavis' issues and placing her opinions on myself. There was something in Munkara's book that reminded me to read Mavis as her own person without imposing her ideas on me.
I needed that distance from Nevil and Trevor and Mavis in order to be able to read this. The language, the art of writing in this book is absolutely first class. The topic was too close and that's what caused the issues in reading it, but the book itself is amazingly awesome, and I'm so very, very glad that I found my way through.
March 29, 2012
I couldn't really get into Bitin' Back until I was about halfway through it, so I understand why there are so many negative feelings about the book. For me, I struggled to accept the voice of the story until I realised that I just had to stop resisting it. Things went a little bit more smoothly after that. I'm sort of fascinated by the fact that the book's simple colloquialism hindered my reading, when in fact it should've actually promoted it; its simplicity ironically makes its reading complex.
The twist at the end would make M. Night Shyamalan proud.
I wanted to give it a one-star rating, but I liked the second half. So, there you go. Two stars for you, Cleven.
The twist at the end would make M. Night Shyamalan proud.
I wanted to give it a one-star rating, but I liked the second half. So, there you go. Two stars for you, Cleven.
February 8, 2015
This book was not what I was expecting and it was a tedious read.
The reasons that Nevil and Trevor had for Nevil pretending to be Jean Rhys did not hold water for me. It was a bizarre and unrealistic plot driver for a novel that was trying to be realistic.
The novel could have been more interesting if someone like Gracie, a character who Cleven introduces as sympathetic, had turned out to be in on the drug dealing. This would have been better than pinning it all on Darryl since he was a dull antagonist from the moment he appeared.
The reasons that Nevil and Trevor had for Nevil pretending to be Jean Rhys did not hold water for me. It was a bizarre and unrealistic plot driver for a novel that was trying to be realistic.
The novel could have been more interesting if someone like Gracie, a character who Cleven introduces as sympathetic, had turned out to be in on the drug dealing. This would have been better than pinning it all on Darryl since he was a dull antagonist from the moment he appeared.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2011
Bitin' Back can be hard to get into because of the slang language, but it is quite a funny book. The storyline is episodic and jumps from one conversation to the next; the chaos of the small town is really entertaining and it is funny to hear read aloud. I wrote an essay on the presence of irony and unreliable narration for my course.
May 2, 2012
I had to read this for an Australian Literature course. Although I am not interested in Australian or Aboriginal literature - this ironic novel had me laughing. (You will laugh more especially if you can put on a good aboriginal Australian accent in your head when reading the novel)
January 3, 2014
Hilarious! A great Aboriginal romp in a small country town with tough characters & colourful language. Themes based on polarities: black/white; city/country; women/men; straight/gay; tough/wussy; meeting expectations/pursuing dreams. One of the titles listed on Anita Heiss' Black Book Challenge.
May 5, 2016
Nevil Dooley wakes up one morning and decides to call himself Jean Rhys much to the distress of his mother. The writing is quick-paced and reveals much about the limitations imposed on the Aboriginals in the community in the years following assimilation where prejudice still prevails.
September 1, 2016
I wasn't certain with this book at first, mostly because of the fractured dialogue and the way it was written, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down! It is very funny and over the top. Some parts had me laughing so loud that I thought I'd "bust a gut".
Well worth reading.
Well worth reading.
September 22, 2011
Loved this book!! Soooo funny.
July 15, 2016
Incredibly funny! A laugh out aloud romp that will have you wanting more! I loved this book and the characters. ***** from me
November 30, 2016
I love this book. It's witty, funny and well written. An easy read with a great message :)
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews