Cirrus@Austlit

'We've all filled up at a servo, but what's it like behind the counter, late at night, as a plethora of unhinged and maniacal souls totter in through the parting glass? David Goodwin worked the graveyard shift for six years in his home suburb of Werribee, and this is his hilarious and darkly mesmeric account of what happens behind the anti-jump wire.

'Most of us have done our time in the retail trenches, but service stations are undoubtedly the front line, as Melburnian David Goodwin found out when he started working the weekend graveyard shift at a servo in his home suburb of Werribee.

'From his very first night shift, Goodwin absorbed a consistent level of mind-bending lunacy over his six years: giant shoplifting bees, balaclava-clad assailants hurling water bombs of different-flavoured cordial through the sunroof of a BMW blasting Roxette's Joyride, and synchronised anarcho-goths high on MDMA loosing large rats in the store from their matching Harry Potter backpacks.

'Goodwin grew to love his servo, assuming the role of nocturnal ringleader of the depraved halogen circus, handing out free pastries and slurpees as he grew a backbone and finally became street smart.

'From psycho meatheads on a steady a diet of homemade speed and strong psychedelics to guitar-strumming, self-appointed mystics trying to grift their way to a better world, the creatures that tottered through the parting glass proved that servos will always attract those a few litres short of a full tank.

'For anyone who's ever toiled under the unforgiving fluorescent lights of a customer service job, Stale Sausage Rolls is a side-splitting and darkly mesmeric coming-of-age story from behind the anti-jump wire that will have you gritting your teeth, then cackling at the absurdity, idiocy and utterly beguiling strangeness of those who only come out at night.' (Publication summary)

'The gut-wrenching, heroic story of how one of Australia’s finest surfers overcame brain injury and despair to win an Olympic medal.

'On the morning of 10 December 2015, Australian surfer Owen Wright entered the water at Pipeline, Hawaii, on the eve of an event that, all going well, could have made him a world champion. But after being pounded by a set of monstrous waves, he was later that day fighting for life en route to a O’ahu hospital, where scans revealed extensive brain trauma. In this inspirational memoir, Wright chronicles the events leading up to that fateful day, as well as the months and years that followed as he battled to regain, firstly, basic functioning, and eventually the capacity to compete again at the apex of surfing.

'Against the Water carries the reader back to Wright’s boyhood in the tiny New South Wales South Coast town of Culburra, where his father, Rob, determined to raise champions, turned family life into a kind of boot camp. While eccentric, the father’s methods bore fruit: the Wrights of Culburra would become Australian surfing royalty. Wright’s story lays bare the complex relationship with his father – the adoration, the fight for independence, the fallings out, the reconciliations, the poignant denouement. It also captures Wright’s life-altering love for Kita Alexander, the beautiful songstress who abandoned a blooming career to help nurse a broken man she’d known for a few short months back to health.

'Told in a spare, intimate style, Against the Water is the moving account of an athlete who refused to accept that his best days were behind him. Owen stopped at nothing not only to rebuild his identity but to construct a better one – he’s now a husband, father, dutiful son and an Olympic medallist in a sport whose spirit courses through his veins. Against the Water also raises fundamental questions around family and competition. What, ultimately, is our duty to our children? At what point does bravery become folly? How much should we sacrifice for the sake of another? Once read, Wright’s story will not be forgotten.' (Publication summary)