A tale of two cities! One book a dissection of New York life and the other from that other famous city ... Brisbane!

Sherman McCoy, the central figure of Tom Wolfe's first novel, is a young investment banker with a fourteen-room apartment in Manhattan. When he is involved in a freak accident in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, the police, the clergy, and assorted hustlers high and low close in on him, licking their chops and giving us a gargantuan helping of the human comedy of New York in the last years of the twentieth century, a city boiling over with racial and ethnic hostilities and burning with the itch to Grab It Now. Wolfe's gallery ranges from Wall Street, where people in their thirties feel like small-fry if they're not yet making a million per, to the real streets, where the aim is lower but the itch is just as virulent.

 The True Story of the Butterfish is Nick Earls' highly anticipated first novel for adults in five years. With his chart-topping band, Butterfish, Curtis Holland lived the clichéd rock dream. Residing in hotels and recording studios, traveling in custom-built buses, he got married after a soundcheck in a wedding chapel in Nevada and barely noticed when is wife left him in Lousiville. But what do you do when the cheering from your fans fades?

Curtis has moved back to Brisbane to try a build a new life and is not used to living in the suburbs and having neighbours. So when he receives an invitation to dinner from Kate, next door, he is surprised to find himself becoming a reluctant role model to her two teenagers, Annaliese and Mark. Then, just as Curtis starts to have grow up feelings for Kate, Annaliese begins to show an interest in him that is less than filial.

Filled with acute observations, humour and tenderness, The True Story of Butterfish is Nick Earls at his very best.