Redback — Howard Jacobson

It was just my luck to get bitten by a Redback. 'There's no such thing as luck', Gunnar McMurphy used to say. 'You chose to sit where you sat. A bite is a transaction between two parties - A biter and a biteree. You sat in wait for that spider with every bit as much purpose as he sat in wait for you.' 'It wasn't a he - it was a she. Only the shes are venemous.' Karl Leon Forelock, product of the Northern English town of Partington (the wettest spot in Europe) and a graduate with a double starred first in the Moral Decencies from Malapert College, Cambridge. Sent to Sydney on a CIA bursary, in order to teach the Australians how to live, Leon Forelock soon discovers that there are those amongst the native population who believe that they have an education to pass on in return. But it is at the hands of the women of Australia that Leon receives his most painful, and his most pleasurable lessons. Meanwhile, in a foul, dilapidated bush privy, way up in the Bogong High Plains, the Redback sucks her teeth and waits her turn...