Muck

‘'Muck is a masterpiece.' — —Raimond Gaita

Muck is about what happens when things go wrong— – hilariously, tragically— – on the path to adulthood. Set in Sydney and New Zealand, it features a cow called Miss Beautiful, an encounter with the Prime Minister, and a church-going atheist who sings like Dean Martin. It is about overbearing parents, farm life, mental illness and the extremes of human vanity. Most of all it is about a young man and the world he constructs in order to survive his family and— somehow— discover a self of his own.

'While this is, psychologically, a complex and cleverly (poetically) executed piece of writing, it is by no means precious or difficult to read. At a modest 193 pages, it races through five years of a family'’s life together, leaping from dramatic event to dramatic event without unnecessary linking exposition. While this book certainly doesn’'t aim to confound the reader, it doesn'’t condescend either. It is a fitting, equally entertaining, follower of Sherborne'’s last memoir, Hoi Polloi.' —Amy Brown, LUMIERE READER

Praise for Craig Sherborne’'s Hoi Polloi

'This boyhood memoir, partly set in the Hawke's Bay, is one of those rare things – —a constantly entertaining narrative which also makes you think.' —Bill Manhire

'A scalding memoir, funny, fast-moving, shot through with a fierce pathos.' —Helen Garner

Craig Sherborne’'s memoir Hoi Polloi was published in 2005. He is also the author of the verse-drama Look at Everything Twice for Me and two books of poetry, Bullion (1995) and Necessary Evil (2006). Sherborne’'s journalism and poetry have appeared in most of Australia’'s leading literary journals and anthologies, including Best Australian Essays and Best Australian Poems. He was born in Sydney.