Gordon wants out. A failed writer and "bottleshop boy," he wants to escape from his overcrowded house, from Brisbane, from the bicentennial, from everything. He stumbles into Wayne, who has connections and the promise of work, and they head north. Without a map. Their destination: Cape Don, a weather station on a secluded peninsula, where they hope to find solitude and artistic inspiration.

What they don't realize is that they'll be stuck in a run-down shack amid a crocodile-infested swamp, on the most isolated point of the Australian continent, with only a few unimpressed locals for company. Gordon and Wayne travel thousands of miles and still don't get anywhere, but their hilarious descent into madness, described in McGahan's deadpan prose, gives us a new understanding of youth, alienation, and failed dreams.