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Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S. & Kerouac

Article published 30th Jun 09
Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S. & Kerouac Read

What:
Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S. & Kerouac

Who:
Patrick O'Neil

Where:
All good bookstores

How much:

Around $35

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Patrick O'Neil is loose and always has been. So it's not hard to imagine that, when the chain-smoking arts student from Melbourne was unleashed on the world with little more than a fedora and a fanciful ambition to become a writer, some strange and wonderful things happened; baleful encounters in Amsterdam alleys, acid trips in the Sahara desert, stand-offs with Jamaican gangsters.

But, just as one of the book's major influences, Dr Thompson, ruminated, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Inherently weird, O'Neil expertly delves into the trials, freedoms and tribulations posed to a twenty-something scaling the world with no plans. Sideways has a wonderful voice. Every one of O'Neil's lucid descriptions makes you feel like jumping the next plane to Mexico and knocking on the door of peyote-induced psychosis.

My guess is that one day O'Neil is going to get so far out, he may never come back. In the interim, get a copy of Sideways, saunter down to the Black Cat, and ask him to sign your copy in exchange for a pot of lager.

By Robbie Coleman

Format: Book

Genre: Fiction

Keywords: Hunter S Thompson, gonzo

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