Grunge lit

Since its invention, the term "grunge lit" has been retrospectively applied to novels written as early as 1977, namely Helen Garner's Monkey Grip.

The term "grunge lit" and its use to categorise and market this diverse group of writers and authorial styles has been the subject of debate and criticism.

[7] The novels typically depict an "inner cit[y]" "...world of disintegrating futures where the only relief from...boredom was through a nihilistic pursuit of sex, violence, drugs and alcohol".

According to Ian Syson, the "depressed and frightened young Australian men" who populate grunge novels express "their alienation through excessive alcohol consumption, acts of brutality, sexual conquests and active contempt for authority"".

"[12] In Richard King's Kindling Does for Firewood, a chronicle of slackers in Melbourne, the male character, Peter, lives in a share house with unemployed roommates who only consume beer and drugs.

Some grunge lit stories depict characters who live in temporary dwellings, that are neither suburban or urban, or which are between two zones, such as on a beach, tent, caravan (motor home) or garage.

The characters in Claire Mendes' book Drift Street are described as being unhealthy, unclean, overweight, tattooed, having greasy hair, and living in deteriorating dwellings "that resemble the bodies who inhabit them".

[15] The character Gordon in Praise is described as having long unwashed hair, an unshaven face, and pale, flabby skin, and he lives in a large, "old, dilapidated house" where all the renters share one bathroom.

[14] Helen Garner's characters in her 1977 novel Monkey Grip are an inner-city male heroin addict drifting in and out of a destructive, obsessive relationship with a single mother, amidst a circle of artists and actors and people living on social assistance in shared housing.

One writer proposed that Ettler chose to leave the city nameless to give it a universal big-city feel: "Australia’s national borders – figural and physical - are blurred to varying extents, and in quite different ways.

Karen Brooks stated that Clare Mendes' Drift Street, Edward Berridge's The Lives of the Saints, and Andrew McGahan's Praise "...explor[e] the psychosocial and psychosexual limitations of young sub/urban characters in relation to the imaginary and socially constructed boundaries defining...self and other" and "opening up" new "liminal [boundary] spaces" where the concept of an abject human body can be explored.

[2] Brooks states that Berridge's short stories provide "...a variety of violent, disaffected and often abject young people", characters who "...blur and often overturn" the boundaries between suburban and urban space.

[2] Grunge lit books were marketed on their cover blurbs as "uncompromising narratives" that gave readers access to the "raw nerves of youth" in an "unflinchingly real", disturbing, and compelling manner.

Other grunge lit writers include: Christos Tsiolkas (Loaded), Linda Jaivin (Eat Me),[3] Clare Mendes (Drift Street), Neil Boyack (co-author, with Simon Colvey, of Black), Fiona McGregor (Suck My Toes), Ben Winch (Liadhed), Justine Ettler (The River Ophelia), Leonie Stephens (Big Man's Barbie and Nature Strip),[21] Eric Dando (Snailhy), Richard King (Kindling Does for Firewood), John Birmingham (He Died with a Felafel in his Hand), Barbara Wel (The Life-Styles of Previous Tenants).

In 1995, when the first books were identified as "grunge lit", the new term was deemed "problematic" and soon after the moniker was coined, it was "hotly contested"[3] and it led to antithetical views.

[7] Linda Jaivin condemned critics who categorized all these authors' vastly different works as "grunge lit", an approach she called an "excuse for a wank".

[8] Sharyn Pearce states that McGahan's 1988 and Kill the Old pose questions about whiteness and masculinity in Australia, as well as exploring political and cultural critiques of Australian Bicentennial celebrations such as Expo '88.

One literary critic referred to the "'God-awful' prose of 'those appalling "grunge" novels' as 'surely fiction's last gasp before it disappears altogether to be replaced by the home shopping channel'.

Writers working within the genre tend to avoid adverbs, extended metaphor and internal monologue, instead allowing objects and context to dictate meaning.

Christie names three examples of Australian "post-grunge lit": Elliot Perlman's Three Dollars, Andrew McCann's Subtopia and Anthony Macris' Capital.

Australian fiction writer Helen Garner was retrospectively considered to be a grunge lit author, due to the characters and subject matter of her 1977 novel Monkey Grip : an inner-city single mother living in a destructive relationship with a heroin addict, amidst a circle of mostly unemployed artists and actors.
Grunge lit is almost exclusively set in the inner-city, with some or most of its action taking place in city centres. One of the earliest examples of the genre, Monkey Grip (1977), was set in Melbourne . The novel relates the lives of people involved in open relationships , and the jealousy and turmoil this free-for-all lifestyle creates.