R&R

Full of lacerating dialogue and typically sharp character portraits, R&R tells the story of US corporal John Ulysses Grant, aka Nashville, and his partner Shorty, an Australian military policeman, in the seaside resort of Vung Tau in South Vietnam, 1967. The Vietnam War rages across the country but Nashville's concerns are closer to home: how did a corpse, buried just days before, turn up in a local bar without any ears? Written with a brilliant, concise wit and brutal, uncompromising insight, R&R is a startlingly original portrait of men and war in the twilight zone behind the front, a searing study of the violence that we do to others, and ourselves.
PRAISE FOR Mark Dapin'S PREVIOUS NOVELS:
'Every now and then you can run across a writer who does a little magic. They take something that almost everyone thinks they know something about, re-examine it from a completely unexpected direction and present the reader with a whole new take on their expectations . . . Mark Dapin has pulled off a deeply human, but particularly Australian, bit of magic.' Courier-Mail
'Every other week, it seems, a fine new Australian novel is published. Few, however, can equal the vernacular flair, the originality of treatment of matters that we had thought overly familiar and the narrative drive of Mark Dapin's Spirit House . . . Dapin is funny, poignant, vibrantly witty and his novel is a treat from its elegiac opening to its bitter, unexpected close.' Canberra Times
'A literary cocktail of rare originality. It is not hard to see why Mark Dapin's stylish novel, set in Nineties Sydney, was such a critical success in Australia. The writing has real freshness . . . the story glides effortlessly from an intriguing start to a heart-warming resolution . . . Dapin impresses with the understated authority of his storytelling.' Daily Telegraph, UK