After poisoningand castinghimself into the sea,Figure is pulled from thewater and resuscitatedby a paramilitary banditnamed Aslan. Uponrecovery, the protagonistfinds himself in alandscape of societal rupture. A world of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violencepeopled by grifters and scavengers,gambling on blood sport and peddlingbathtub gin and snake oil. A dystopia oflate-stage capitalism devolving/evolvinginto a pre-industrial age subsistence underthe ominous shadow of war-lordship andundisciplined militia. Figure soondetermines that his saviour may not beserving his best interests.

The two characters part company,and Figure begins his largely peripateticventure through the maritime colonies ofthe basin, guided and or misguided by anensemble cast of characters, often no lesslost than he; hungry ghosts desperatelyhaunting a spiritual dust bowl. The voidfills with pagan practices and shamanisticdrug rituals: pickling of animal foetuses;sexual congress with forest-dwellingphantoms; mainline injection of raw fishextract. Figure’s ellipsis of transit throughthe basin queries the sense of meaning andattachment to the land one inhabits, as herubs shoulders with an army of lost soulsseeking a misconceived refuge.

In parallel, Figure embarks on a dizzyingtour of the spectrum of augmented anddiminished consciousness, from realitythrough illusion, disputing borders betweennightmare, fantasy and oblivion. As ancientwisdom and modern medicine concur, thedifference between poison and remedy isoften a matter of dosage, but hazardousis the quest. Atavistic and hallucinatory,jarringly visceral and deeply cerebral, thisis a stunning debut from Melbourne-bornScott McCulloch.

Roland Bisshop is from Readings Carlton