The author wants his readers to be involved in this dark and violent novel. He invites them to take sides, take on board the ideas he has written and think about poverty, power, privilege, suicide and Aboriginal deaths in custody. But first they must meet some rather unattractive characters.

This is the first novel from Collis, a creative writing academic and Barkindji man from Bourke, NSW. It won the 2016 David Unaipon Award for a previously unpublished Aboriginal writer.

The story is about two Indigenous men, Blackie and his former prison cellmate Rips, and their journey back to Blackie’s hometown of Dubbo, Wiradjuri country, in a stolen car driven by a white friend, Carlos.

Blackie has been looking forward to this journey ever since he was verballed into a prison sentence by a white policeman, a former childhood friend. He is thirsting for revenge, but also for the amphetamines the trio are carrying.

The road trip is punctuated by ingesting speed, drinking and memories. Blackie has had a good education but is such a foul-mouthed addict (a fact he acknowledges to himself ) that it comes as a surprise to the reader when he starts quoting poetry or Shakespeare.

He dances on his grandmother’s Wiradjuri country, talks to her ghost by her grave in Dubbo, understands the portents of a great storm in that town and only finds honour again with family.

It was difficult to empathise with Blackie’s wasted life, and too easy to dislike or pity him.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville