BUTCHERS PARADE

David Morisset’s inspiration for his new novel was Riverstone, where he attended school, played rugby league, drank his first beer, fell in love for the first time, and decided to leave to explore the world.  But David is not Horrie Sherwood, the main character, and Redgate, the principal location, is not Riverstone.  In fact, Horrie is much more like one of David’s school friends (now deceased), and Riverstone has been simplified to turn it into Redgate.  Above all, of course, Horrie is a creation of David Morisset’s imagination and Redgate exists only in his mind.

David’s hope is that this novel will entertain readers and help them understand what we have become in these early years of the twentieth-first century by revisting a time when Australia was on the brink of momentous changes.  The narrative adopts the perspective of nostalgic realism, presenting the past as if it were a series of black and white photographs showing the good with the bad and everything in between.

Set in the third quarter of the twentieth century, most of the action of 'Butchers Parade' takes place in Redgate, a meatworks town on the semi-rural western fringe of Sydney.  The tale is dominated by the hulking figure of Horrie, a young meatworker, who spends his spare time at the Railway Hotel and plays in the front row of local rugby league teams.  Horrie loves Redgate and its people but he is conscripted by the army and sent to fight in Vietnam.  On his return to Redgate, Horrie is a troubled man, haunted by distorted recollections of brutal battles and caught up in a romance that seems hopeless.

David Morisset is an Australian writer, who has published novels, poetry and short stories.  His poem, 'Persian Princess', was commended in the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards 2009).  He is a former diplomat and economist.

'Butchers Parade' is available now for purchase at Amazon, CreateSpace, Smashwords and other distributors including iBooks.