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y separately published work icon Down the Hume single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Down the Hume
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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

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Hachette Australia , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 5287853228860241863.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 266p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: February 2017
      ISBN: 9780733635571

Works about this Work

Visions of Western Sydney in Howard’s Australia : Luke Carman’s An Elegant Young Man, Peter Polites’s Down the Hume and Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Lebs Matilda Grogan Lucas , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 11 December vol. 37 no. 3 2022;

'Once overlooked in Australian literature, recent writing from Western Sydney is now among the field’s most dynamic and vital. Over the past two decades, Western Sydney, one of Australia’s most culturally and linguistically diverse communities, has also become a locus for Islamophobia, racism and anti-multicultural sentiment. This sentiment was bolstered by John Howard’s Coalition government between 1996 and 2007 through the creation of a ‘citizen norm’ mythologising Anglo-Celtic identity, normative expressions of masculinity, and neoliberal individualism (Johnson 197). This period also saw a sharp rise in discrimination against Muslim Australians following the MV Tampa controversy, the fabricated ‘Children Overboard’ scandal, the September 11 attacks on New York City, and the trial and conviction of a group of young Lebanese Muslim men, led by Bilal Skaf, for a series of violent gang rapes perpetrated against young women in Sydney. In this essay, I read three works by writers from Western Sydney as resistance to Howard’s citizen norm: Luke Carman’s An Elegant Young Man (2013), Peter Polites’s Down the Hume (2017) and Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Lebs (2018). I examine the works’ depictions of suburban locality and masculinity in the context of Howard-era multicultural Australia.' (Publication abstract)

Home Away from Home : The Aged Care Facility as Transnational Space Paul Sharrad , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Spaces : India and Australia 2021; (p. 195-210)

'The Australian government has recently received the report of a Royal Commission into the nation’s management of aged care. This followed media scandals about physical and sexual abuse, neglect and inadequate controls during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though all discussion occurred within a national context, this chapter shows that the aged-care ‘industry’ is a space of transnational flows, both in the export of business and models and in the internal movements of staff who are frequently unskilled immigrant labour. The chapter notes some Australian-Indian links and looks at how ‘the old folks’ home’ as heterotopic space has been represented in Australian literature.'

Source: Abstract.

Escape Lockdown with Book Tips from Richard Fidler, Heather Rose, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Tegan Bennett Daylight Hannah Reich , Kate Evans , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , July 2021;

'Readers know that the very act of reading can transport you away, well beyond the walls of your home. And with millions of Australians in lockdown, it's more important than ever to find a book that'll take your mind on an adventure.' (Introduction)

Harold Legaspi : The Queer Imagination of Down The Hume by Peter Polites Harold Legaspi , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 24 2019;

— Review of Down the Hume Peter Polites , 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)

What I’m Reading Nigel Featherstone , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2018;
Harold Legaspi : The Queer Imagination of Down The Hume by Peter Polites Harold Legaspi , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , December no. 24 2019;

— Review of Down the Hume Peter Polites , 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 KN , 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 Veronica Sullivan , 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 Crusader Hillis , 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 Nathan Smith , 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 Anastasia Tsirtsakis , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , 16 June 2017;
Last amended 20 Mar 2018 10:39:43
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