Toltz attended Killara High School and graduated from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1994.

Prior to his literary career, he lived in Montreal, Vancouver, New York City, Barcelona, and Paris, variously working as a cameraman, telemarketer, security guard, private investigator, English teacher, and screenwriter.

The novel spans the entirety of Martin's life and several years after (a range never specified in the text, but starting after World War II and ending in the early 2000s), and is set in Australia, Paris, and Thailand.

[citation needed] The novel has repeatedly been compared favourably to John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces.

[4] His second novel, Quicksand, published in 2015,[5] won the Russell Prize,[6] while his third, Here Goes Nothing, was longlisted for the 2022 Nib Literary Award.