Cirrus@Austlit

'STEVE TOLTZ IS AN ISOLATE of Australian literature. He has no readily traceable ancestors locally, and admirers but no imitators, perhaps because his style is too distinctive to borrow. The international inspirations he has name-checked – Jane Bowles, Clarice Lispector, Roberto Bolaño – are detectable in his work only in trace quantities, and his sensibility comes with a distinctly northern hemisphere pedigree: European modernist pessimism, as told through American comedy. Only his settings remain antipodean. He has lived overseas for many years (various European capitals, the French countryside, Park Slope and then Los Angeles), yet his novels are all set in Australian suburbia, the jurisdiction of his memory.' (Introduction)