[2] Inspired by the writings of Charles Bukowski, the semi-autobiographical account of a doomed, drug and alcohol-fuelled relationship became an Australian bestseller, and is often credited with launching the short-lived "grunge lit" movement – terminology that McGahan himself (along with most of the writers to whom it was applied) rejected.

He and his live-in girlfriend Cynthia LaMonde, a waitress, inhabit a world of casual sex, plentiful drugs and partying till dawn, pastimes that don't really give Gordon much pleasure, plagued as he is by a sense of being unfulfilled.

Love affairs gone bad and fantasies undercut by reality are the norm for a generation that stops doing something the moment it becomes work, that wants to win without competing because making an effort would render victory meaningless.

[3] The book’s hero is the chronically laidback Gordon, a chain-smoking asthmatic sweating under the Brisbane sun and scuttling his days away in a ramshackle guest house populated by itinerants and the elderly.

Curran cast film novices Peter Fenton (frontman of rock group Crow) and Sacha Horler (a new National Institute of Dramatic Art graduate at the time) in the highly challenging lead roles of Gordon and Cynthia.