Wake in Fright was published in 1961, more than 50 years ago. Australia, many assume, has come a long way since then. Yet Kenneth Cook’s masterpiece, the novel by which he is still best known and that has hardly ever been out of print, is timeless. The forces that plunge hapless schoolteacher John Grant into a spiral of alcoholic despair—lack of money, desperation, the heat and the alien nature of the landscape—remain menacingly relevant.

When Ken wrote Wake in Fright, he was a 30-year-old ABC journalist with a wife and four children. He was also the author of a novel that had been accepted by the British publisher Michael Joseph, then abandoned for fear of libel: not the best of beginnings for a writing career. But after his first crushing disappointment had subsided, Ken decided to have another go. After dinner every night he sat down at the kitchen table with an exercise book and a biro. He finished the manuscript in six weeks, had it typed up and sent it to Michael Joseph. This time they were happy to accept it and published it with almost no editing.