'Reading Ronnie Scott’s (of The Listed Brow esteem) debut novel ‘The Adversary’ struck me with its wistful immediacy. A kind of sentimentality that made me simultaneously longing and repellent for my days of inner-city sharehouse living, in all its messy, hellish finitude. Yet, it was the complicated politics of gay friendship and companionships that were intriguing as they were foreign to me (as a sedentary, hetero-homebody) that kept my mind occupied until long after it had drawn its conclusions.' (Introduction)