Wake in Fright (1961) is the debut novel by Australian author Kenneth Cook

Wake in Fright (1961) is the debut novel by Australian author Kenneth Cook. John Grant is a young, bonded schoolteacher who has been assigned to work a gruelling two-year post as the schoolmaster of Tiboonda, an isolated, three-building township in the outback of western New South Wales.

Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook was written back in 1961, and it portrays one man's bleak and frightening experience when he wanders into Bundanyabba, a town in the desolate outback. What should be an overnight stay on his way to Sydney becomes a nightmare from which he never fully recovers. Cook does an excellent job in painting the despair of the main character, John Grant, when he loses all his travel money in a gambling game. Without any money, contacts, or resources, he finds himself stranded in this small town with virtually no options to leave.

Kenneth Cook unflinchingly presents the darkest corner of the Australian soul, specifically rural Australia, by introducing us to a world which can accurately be described as a downward spiral into Hell. Alcohol, gambling, squalor, cheapness, yearning, desperation, violence, hopelessness, apathy and self-destruction.

Wake in Fright tells of a young teacher, John Grant, who arrives in a rough outback mining town planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney.

Wake in Fright tells of a young teacher, John Grant, who arrives in a rough outback mining town planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney In the company of shadowy strangers, one night stretches to five, in which he discovers gambling, ruins himself financially and plunges headlong toward his own destruction in many other ways. Thus, when the alcohol-induced mist lifts, the educated John Grant is no more.

I had imagined Kafka wakes up one morning and finds himself transported to the Australian outback in this novel by Kenneth Cook. The book was pretty faithfully adapted to the film version in the early 'seventies and bombed at the box-office at that time, when Australia was trying to reflect a more sophisticated National image in a time of great social change.

Both the book and the film have achieved a cult status as the Australian answer to US and UK novels and films of 1960s youthful alienation

Both the book and the film have achieved a cult status as the Australian answer to US and UK novels and films of 1960s youthful alienation. It is the gruelling story of a young Australian schoolteacher on his way back from the outback to Sydney and civilization when things start to go wrong. He finds himself stuck overnight in Bundanyabba, a rough outback mining town.

by. Cook, Kenneth, 1929-. Books for People with Print Disabilities.

Wake in Fright was made into a film in 1971, arguably the greatest film ever made in Australia. It starred Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, and Jack Thompson in his first screen role. Lost for many years, the restored film was re-released to acclaim in 2009

Wake in Fright was made into a film in 1971, arguably the greatest film ever made in Australia. Lost for many years, the restored film was re-released to acclaim in 2009. Kenneth Cook was born in Sydney in 1929. Wake in Fright was published in 1961 to high praise in New York and London, and launched Cook's writing career. Cook wrote twenty-one books in all, along with screenplays and scripts for radio and TV. Peter Temple is one of Australia's finest writers