Robert G. Barrett is a contemporary Australian author whose books have sold over a million copies. He is currently the most popular author of young Australian working class males, who find in Barrett's main series protagonist, Les Norton, a hero whose existence affirms the values of male working class life - mateship, heavy drinking, courage, violence, sexism and a rejection of middle class rationality. The great bulk of current Australian fiction exhibits middle class values, which alienate such readers' (author's abstract).