'Like the majority of Australians, I grew up in the suburbs - the southern suburbs of Sydney, to be precise; I was a Kogarah boy. I had no idea, at the time, that I was inhabiting a dismal purgatory, a haven for provincial smallmindedness, hypocritical piety and low-level kink, from which I could either escape (to the city or, better, overseas) or face the slow extinction of my finer feelings... How could I know? I’d read none of the books, seen none of the movies that might foster this belief. I don’t believe the phrase “the Australian ugliness” was ever uttered, either at my primary school or in my parents’ house. Only later, better read and more aware, did it occur to me that I was supposed to despise the things I had cherished. And then, obediently, I did.' (Introduction)
