Sergei and Novak Karamazov are brothers who, following their father's suicide in 1988, emigrate from the USSR to Brisbane, to live with their Uncle Rog - gambler, weed-farmer, sole-shareholder of the Business of Death. Struggling to recover from the loss of his father, twelve-year-old Novak runs away, leaving their house burned to the ground.
Over the next decade, Sergei and Rog traverse Australia on the trail of Novak, from the pubs and racetracks of Sydney to the anarcho-vegan share-houses of Melbourne. On the way they are joined by Rags - Aboriginal, on parole, expert fisherman. Tracing the crevices of the Murray-Darling Basin, they arrive at an outback vineyard deep in the Pilbara.
Meanwhile, Novak (under the guise of Jacky Siberia) wakes up in a guesthouse in Saigon. Plagued by strange dreams and memories, recovering from a stab wound, and addicted to heroin, he gambles his life, and that of his only friend - the Welshman - on one final cockfight. His rooster loses.
Chasing Novak Fishing is a literary road novel about suicide, post-colonial guilt, philosophy and fishing.
It is funny, fast-paced, provocative, strange, and, like the colours on a marlin's dorsal fin, dazzlingly original.
