I have knocked on flyscreens and said to mothers of kidnapped toddlers, 'Don't you feel guilty for leaving your child in the front yard alone?' I have shamed them to tears for the photographer. I have gatecrashed funerals, linked innocent corpses to local crime syndicates. Or feigned empathy to the grief-stricken to make copy from their hard-luck stories. I enjoyed the kudos of my name beneath headlines on front pages and became used to the heartlessness as if blank inside. I was doing it for my family—it was worth the cruelty.That line of work gives your eyes a plastic appearance. I've noticed it in the mirror, a dead glitter.Callum Smith—Wordsmith, Words for short—is a newspaper journalist of the old school. He knows how to write a story that sings, knows all the tricks of the tabloid trade. And he likes to drink with his colleagues, sometimes to flirt dangerously with young women.When his marriage blows up after a night of drinking goes way...

The award-winning sequel to the acclaimed memoir Hoi Polloi."The dynasty has started with my father as the founding father and me his only son, the founding son. He looks forward to the day when he can watch his grandchildren out there in the clover-covered paddocks frolicking among the cowpats. Playing with a pony, getting stung by bees. The most wholesome activities in the world."With their only son on the brink of adolescence, the nouveaux-riches Sherbornes move away from the city to start a new, gentrified existence on a 300-acre farm – or "estate" – in Taonga, New Zealand. But life on the farm is anything but wholesome. Sherborne evokes his family's slide into madness through a series of unforgettable, hilarious portraits: of "Feet," his once-glamorous mother, now addled with snobbery, paranoia, and mental illness; of "The Duke," his uncomprehending, sporadically violent father; and of himself, the "Lord Muck" of the title, at once helpless...

Shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature, Best Writing Award 2012 and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, 2011.? The Amateur Science of Love is the debut novel by Craig Sherborne, author of the acclaimed memoirs Hoi Polloi and Muck. Colin dreams of escaping his parents' farm for a grand stage career. He makes it to London and a disastrous audition before meeting Tilda. Tilda is beautiful, older, an artist and she brings his future with her. A heady romance leads to a small town in country Victoria and a new home in a decaying former bank. They are building a life together, but there are cracks in the foundation. This is a love story, told from passionate beginning to spectacular end. It is intimate and honest, blackly funny and emotionally devastating.??Craig Sherborne's Hoi Polloi was shortlisted for the Queensland and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. The follow-up, Muck, won the...

Tree Palace is a affectionate portrait of a family living on the edge of society. Shane, Moira and Midge, along with young Zara and Rory, are trants - itinerants roaming the plains north-west of Melbourne in search of disused houses to sleep in, or to strip of heritage fittings when funds are low. When they find their Tree Palace outside Barleyville, things are looking up. At last, a place in which to settle down. But Zara, fifteen, is pregnant and doesn't want a child. She'd rather a normal life with town boys, not trant life with a baby. Moira decides to step in: she'll look after her grandchild. Then Shane finds himself in trouble with the local cops. Warmly told and witty, Craig Sherborne's second novel is a revelation, an affecting story of family and rural life. Craig Sherborne's memoir Hoi Polloi (2005) was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. The follow-up, Muck (2007), won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction. Craig's first novel, The Amateur Science of Love, won the Melbourne Prize for Literature's Best Writing Award, and was shortlisted for a Victorian Premier's Literary Award and a NSW Premier's Literary Award. Craig has also written two volumes of poetry, Bullion (1995) and Necessary Evil (2005), and a verse drama, Look at Everything Twice for Me (1999). His writing has appeared in most of Australia's literary journals and anthologies. He lives in Melbourne. textpublishing.com.au

The hilariously compelling memoir that was hailed as an instant classic."The first time I see drunks beat up my father I'm six and standing at the bend in the stairs. I press my face against my mother's waist but with one eye I watch as they headlock him from behind at reception because he's ordered them out of his pub."Hoi Polloi recounts a childhood spent on racetracks and in bars, as the author's parents struggle to climb the social ladder. It begins in 1968 in the small town of Heritage, New Zealand. Living above the bar of his family's hotel, the young Craig is exposed to violence, drinking and murky racial politics. His parents, whom Sherborne thinks of as "Winks" and "Heels" in his eccentric personal language, decide to sell the hotel and move to Sydney, Australia – which they imagine as New Zealand's "England", a place of boundless wealth, prestige and social opportunities.Once in Sydney, the family begins a love affair with the racing scene....