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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A confronting and powerful novel from an exciting new voice - for lovers of Christos Tsiolkas (Loaded) and Luke Davies (Candy).
'He touched my face. When his hand went along my bruised top lip and my almost broken nose, I winced from the pain. His fist went into a deep denim pocket. Pulled out a Syrinapx bottle, twisted the cap off and handed me two light blue pills.'
'How did Bucky get here? A series of accidents. A tragic love for a violent man. An addiction to painkillers he can't seem to kick. An unlikely friendship with an ageing patient.
'Drugs, memories and the objects of his desire are colluding against Bucky. And when it hits him. Bam. A ton of bricks ...
'The shadowy places of Western Sydney can be lit up with the hope of love, but no streetlight can illuminate like obsession.
'A novel of addiction, secrets and misplaced love, this is an Australian debut not to be missed.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Harold Legaspi : The Queer Imagination of Down The Hume by Peter Polites
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 24 2019;
— Review of Down the Hume 2017 single work novel'There is not a simple matter of homogenous ‘queer’ voice, literary or otherwise (Hurley, 2010). As poststructuralist theorists have contended, for various historical and social reasons, ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are discursively unstable and contested categories (Jagose, 2002) and homosexuality is ‘a performative space of contradiction’ (Sedgwick , 1990). In highlighting Polites’ engagement through his noir, i.e. of the thornier breaches of the queer-racial diaspora, I seek to explore the ideals behind his proposed definitive ‘queer’. Are bodies racialised erotically? Can queer love be normative? The answers to these questions, as the chapters of Down The Hume have argued, is yes, and the implication is that a radical tension and a central paradox is characteristic—are queer relationships driven by sex?—and perhaps even definitional—of the very term “queer” (Sedgwick, 1990).’' (Introduction)
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What I’m Reading
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2018; -
Queering and Querying the Australian Suburbs : Reimagining (sub)urban Identities
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 24/25 2018; (p. 352-362)'This article takes an autobiographical approach to explore the changes that have occurred in Australian suburbia over the past twenty years. It considers two key queer texts—Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded (1995) and Peter Polites’s Down the Hume (2017)—and the manner in which the protagonists of these novels express their class and sexuality in their respective suburbanscapes. Published more than twenty years apart, I argue that the process of queering Australian suburbia that can be read in both novels opens up a space to reimagine how class, ethnic and sexual mobility is negotiated in contemporary Australia.' (Publication abstract)
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Polites : When You're a Writer From a Minority Background Sometimes You Need Permission to Write
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , 16 June 2017; -
Ethnic and Sexual Identities Intersect in Diverse Suburbs
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4 March 2017; (p. 20) 'Peter Polites’s impressive debut novel Down the Hume charts similar terrain to Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded. It further mines the struggles of ethnic and sexual identity in modern Australia, only this time the protagonist is on a far more precarious path, headed for self-destruction.' (Introduction)
-
Harold Legaspi : The Queer Imagination of Down The Hume by Peter Polites
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 24 2019;
— Review of Down the Hume 2017 single work novel'There is not a simple matter of homogenous ‘queer’ voice, literary or otherwise (Hurley, 2010). As poststructuralist theorists have contended, for various historical and social reasons, ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are discursively unstable and contested categories (Jagose, 2002) and homosexuality is ‘a performative space of contradiction’ (Sedgwick , 1990). In highlighting Polites’ engagement through his noir, i.e. of the thornier breaches of the queer-racial diaspora, I seek to explore the ideals behind his proposed definitive ‘queer’. Are bodies racialised erotically? Can queer love be normative? The answers to these questions, as the chapters of Down The Hume have argued, is yes, and the implication is that a radical tension and a central paradox is characteristic—are queer relationships driven by sex?—and perhaps even definitional—of the very term “queer” (Sedgwick, 1990).’' (Introduction)
-
[Review Essay] Down the Hume
2017
single work
review
essay
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 4 February 2017; 'Marketed as a hybrid of Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded and Luke Davies’ Candy, Peter Polites’ Down the Hume is the story of a gay Greek man known as Bux, who finds himself in a masochistic relationship with an Aussie drug dealer called Nice Arms Pete and who soon becomes addicted to painkillers.' (Introduction) -
Queer, Working-class Noir : Debut Novelist on Australian Narcissism and Suburban Masculinity
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 24 February 2017; 'Peter Polites is part of a group of western Sydney writers from diverse backgrounds who are shaking up Australian literature.' -
'Down the Hume' by Peter Polites
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 391 2017; 'Peter Polites’s first novel is remarkable in its power to evoke growing up caught between conflicting cultural and sexual identities. It tells the story of Bux, a gay man haunted by his addiction to painkillers, his abusive relationship with his drug-dealing bodybuilder boyfriend, his violent alcoholic Greek father, and a childhood where his sexuality and his traditional Greek upbringing mark him forever as an outsider. The novel pulses with the frenetic life of Sydney’s western suburbs, where cultures, peoples, and languages clash. As Bux moves across the city, the stark disparity between Sydney’s multicultural west and monocultural east becomes a central theme.' (Introduction) -
Ethnic and Sexual Identities Intersect in Diverse Suburbs
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4 March 2017; (p. 20) 'Peter Polites’s impressive debut novel Down the Hume charts similar terrain to Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded. It further mines the struggles of ethnic and sexual identity in modern Australia, only this time the protagonist is on a far more precarious path, headed for self-destruction.' (Introduction) -
Polites : When You're a Writer From a Minority Background Sometimes You Need Permission to Write
2017
single work
column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , 16 June 2017;
Awards
- Western Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales,
