The article discusses the critical reception of the work of Brian Castro, especially the responses to his use of critical theory in his novels. In analysing theory and authority in Castro's novel Double-Wolf, Barker discovers a shift in his approach to theory and argues that it is Double-Wolf which, unlike the earlier novels, gives Freud and Freudian theory a leading role and foregrounds theory in an entirely different way from his other novels. She discusses these and other issues with Brian Castro in an interview published in the same issue of Australian Literary Studies.