Poof

Shortlisted for the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards Premier's Award for a Work of State SignificancePart provocateur, part seducer, this young gay man's account of life offers one of the freshest takes on Australia and the world today.Honouring poets of the past - Jean Genet, Veronica Franco, Euripides, Hunter S. Thompson, Oscar Wilde - and joining in their task of finding meaning in existence and the modern world, Tolcher has produced a brazenly honest debut without precedent.Through his writing he subverts his own shame, weaponises it, and positions himself as an anti-hero of our time right when we need him the most.Following his humble beginnings as an outcast in the dreary outer suburbs of Brisbane and escalating into a Dionysian, poetic and pornographic international climax, Poof follows Tolcher's search for love and purpose as he is drawn to the beds of powerful, sadistic men. If he can endure just a little longer, a little more... will they love him?In an age of victimhood, Tolcher offers us a roadmap to empowerment and integrity as he pulls back the curtain on both our pride and our shame, and shines a spotlight on a hidden history that has been erased time and again.