There’s a compelling honesty about this memoir by a 30-something Australian journalist describing his forays into the drug and sex underbelly of Asia. Williams has already written a book, The Ice Age, about his own addiction to ice, developed while he was researching methamphetamines in Melbourne. He candidly admits that his mental health is fragile, sometimes psychotic, with a family history of instability. He gives no excuses, just mostly drug-induced reasons, for occasional antisocial, even violent, behaviour.

This new book starts dramatically, and the reader is quickly treated to the grubby drug-laden back story of how Williams came to Asia. From there it is a trawl through several countries, using drugs, learning to meditate, writing articles but then waiting for payment, stealing from corner stores as the only way to eat, but mostly meeting people from around the world. His pen portraits of them are ripe and colourful, brutally honest, and certainly not flattering. He tries to discover why they have come to Asia and what they seek there.

His forays to seedy Pattaya in Thailand and Angeles in the Philippines are described in equally forensic terms. He describes the latter as ‘Pattaya’s poorer, younger sister, the one molested repeatedly by a Catholic priest as a child, became a fundamentalist protestant as a teenager roughly the same time she became a meth addict, stopped washing, got pregnant, then scooped out her own eye with a fork and ate it.’

It’s strong stuff, as are his unflinching descriptions of his gay sexual encounters during his travels in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and the Philippines; his own violence; suicidal tendencies and psych ward notes, right to the end of the book.

He’s a fine writer, making this book equally fascinating and depressing, but definitely not for sensitive souls.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville