peteg's blog - noise - books - 2009 01 18 Praise

Andrew McGahan: Praise. (1992)

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I bought this novel on impulse, partly because of the movie, partly because David Marr apparently thought it to be one of the few Australian books of the 1990s that told it like it was. As one would expect, 'it' (embodied by Brisvegas) was drenched in sex and drugs, and just a little rock-and-roll.

I guess the inevitable comparisons are with Douglas Coupland's classic Generation X and John Birmingham's iconic He died with a felafel in his hand. I found it inferior to both, and indeed not even as good as the film, which may be due to Sacha Horler being a better Cynthia than McGahan's. Not to say it wasn't worth reading, just not worth reading slowly.