Fat, Fifty & F***ed! is winner of the inaugural Australian Popular Fiction competition by Geoffrey McGeachin. Many of you will probably recall Nigel Marsh's similarly-titled Fat, Forty and Fired. While Nigel Marsh's protagonist is an Australian advertising executive who lost his job, Geoffrey McGeachin's Martin Carter is a bank manager in the bush who totally lost it during his bank's last day of operation.Unhappy with his family (and life in general), on a whim, Martin decided to make off with the bank's money. With nowhere to go, he decides to make an 800-km road trip from Burrinkjuruk to Far North Queensland to visit his high-school friend Jack Starck in his mountaintop fortress. Along the way, he rescues the ravishing Faith Chance from a group of bikies, and she becomes his girl. Among other misadventures, he got involved in some big conspiracy plot involving a media mogul, the military, and the government who are planning to take out his mad major-friend. In spite of it all, Martin and Faith managed to reach FNQ. The fortress got bombed to bits; good thing they (Martin, Faith, Jack and VT - his gay lover) managed to escape in a WWII Huey with Martin's millions and the Philippine Treasury's gold bars. After settling an old score with the people who have been making their lives difficult, they escape to Macau where they all lived happily ever after.
Hi Albert,
ReplyDeleteJust noticed your blog and thought I should point out that since my novel, FAT, FIFTY & F***ED! was published well over a year before the Nigel Marsh book it might be a bit of a stretch to say it was a parody.
Cheers,
Geoff McGeachin
Sorry about that, George. The inaccuracy in the blog entry has been corrected.
ReplyDelete