Poof

Shortlisted for the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance

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, 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.