The focal character of Down the Hume, Bux, is a young, queer, second-generation Greek Australian man. He works at a retirement home, changing sheets and massaging dying limbs, after stints at a department store, a porno outlet, and behind the bar at a bowling club. It was at the bowlo that Bux met his boyfriend, who’s referred to as Nice Arms Pete because of his bulging biceps. Pete is a small-time drug dealer, a gym-junkie, a head taller than Bux, and prone to using his fists in bouts of roid rage whenever his fidelity is questioned. But Bux clings on to their relationship, casting abusive, dishonest Pete as the husband in the cottage of his white Australian dream.

Following the everyday extremities of Bux’s existence keeps you hooked to Down the Hume. He hunts for the ‘little blue moons’ of Syrinapx painkillers he’s addicted to and craves the mental fog the pills infuse into his brain. He has a messy fling with a doctor at the nursing home while crammed into a fire extinguisher closet, and he stalks Nice Arms Pete in the hope of catching him as a cheater. The staccato prose pushes this all along at pace. The sentences are unfinished and colloquial, crammed with Aussie millennial slang, Mean Girls references, and snatches of Greek and text-speak.

Down the Hume is a noir thriller, but the increasing suspense and the plot twist isn’t what kept the pages turning. It’s the thrill of reading something so charged and fast that interrogates our national identity through a character with such a distinctive voice. This contemporary story is far more relevant and noteworthy than the nostalgic bush narratives that are considered the epitome of Australian storytelling.

Reviewed by Angus Dalton