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This is one gleeful pastiche of a book into which Lindsay has tipped fables redolent of Angela Carter, Patrick Süskind and Kate Grenville. We find ourselves in the nightmarish yet endearing town of (variously) Salvation or Ruination. The town exists in an inverted universe where the touchstones of culture are reversed, and what is salvation is ruination and vice versa. This town trades in grief and shame. The annual festival falls on the anniversary of a terrible shipwreck, and the crux of the festival is a celebration of, or atonement for (difficult to say), the deaths of the passengers and the cannibalism of the survivors. Within this arena, the Slapping Man, Ernie, is a celebrity. Customers slap his oversized, iron-strong jaw for relief from their grief, frustrations, disgust and pain. But Ernie is no ordinary therapist and he sets out to seek revenge. I alternated between disliking this novel and liking it a lot. My love/hate response is mirrored by the fate of many of the characters in the novel, and I feel Lindsay has created this tension deliberately and very successfully. This is a book that will not let you relax. But it will make you laugh, which I think is a rare treat in any novel.

Annelise Balsamo is the assistant editor of Labour and Industry.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: andrew o. lindsay