Poof (hardcover)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE QUEENSLAND PREMIER'S AWARD FOR A WORK OF STATE SIGNIFICANCE

"Australian author James Tolcher's debut book Poof is a harrowingly truthful biography: an achievement and a chronicle of achievements, of if not triumphs, then survivals.

Taken together, these survivals construct a panorama of the traumas and hostilities which punctuate, define or redefine, and sometimes end queer lives. That Tolcher has survived to tell his tale is an achievement all its own. That he does so with gripping prose is the achievement that hopefully will persuade readers to buy and read this profound and timely book.

SILENCE = DEATH is what ACTUP taught us during the HIV/AIDS crisis. Poof clangs wildly at the five-alarm fire all around us: silence is their goal, our deaths are their goal.

What is the weapon against silence? A voice. That is what Poof is, and Tolcher wields his voice in prose like a weapon, the vengeful glint of a supervillain in his eye.

Poof is Tolcher's barbaric yawp--a throat tearing shriek meant to ring in its readers' ears long after."

-- PETER DAYTON FOR DNA MAGAZINE

Part 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, Euripedes, 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.

ISBN 9781763681309