Cirrus@Austlit

'With a nod of his head to Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, Richard King, winner of the 1995 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, writes with tongue-in-cheek to give us a boisterous novel of just one of the beginnings of white Australia.

'In the fine and funny tradition of absurdist writing, Carrion Colony is the exciting new novel from the winner of the 1995 Australian/Vogel Literary Award.

'Set in a broken-down penal colony, Old + New Bridgeford, in Australia in the early 19th century, Richard King writes an extraordinarily compelling, somewhat autobiographical and tongue-in-cheek view on just one of the beginnings of white Australia.

'There's mayhem, violence and generally very odd behaviour exhibited by the soldiers and the convicts dumped in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

'There's a doctor who's too preoccupied in razing the native flora to practise medicine, a madman stranded on a rocky outcrop engraving a tiny map of Great Britain in the stone, a cartographer whose pencils are blunt and the Spanish Girl, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, with a mean knack for Red Ace.

'Every man and woman in this colony is being stretched beyond belief just to survive, but there's humour too in the surviving.

'Carrion Colony is a boisterous novel, full of verve, that interprets history with a wickedly satirical lens.' [publisher's summary]

'MARGARET: 'He is sweet, and earnest, as I say, and he generously and with great endeavour (but hopelessly) performed oral sex upon me for some twenty - twenty-five minutes, which I contentedly received, and feigned appreciation with crocodile moans and crocodile groans. His heart is in the right place, even if his tongue never was.'

'WILLIAM:'Margaret ad I have been going out for about six weeks. They have been blissful. We cannot find fault. I think we absolutely delight each other. And one wonders how long such exquisite perfection can last. One watches for the trigger, for the germ, for the bug or bruise that will spread the infection that will turn cancerous that will kill the relationship. It happens in every relationship. The outbreak of the hateful telling.'

'Kindling Does For Firewood tells the story of the headstrong Margaret and her hapless boyfriend William as they fall in and out of love. From their first date this boy meets girl novel takes on new life as we hear both sides of the story. William and Margaret work their way through the familiar territories of frustrated love, earnest politics, sexual temptations and fear of impending boredom. This is a novel about delight and joy, anger and sex, humour and bad behaviour. This is a world where people stuff up - spectacularly and often. But more importantly, it's a world where people do give a stuff.' (Publication summary)