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TSIOLKAS
merciless gods
A mesmerising master
of how to tell a story
Peter Craven, Sun-Herald
Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal,
tenderness, brutality, sacrice and revelation ...
This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed writer
Christos Tsiolkas, bestselling author of The Slap and
Barracuda, takes you deep into worlds both strange and
familiar, and introduces you to characters who will never
let you go and situations that will haunt you forever.
... one of the most signicant contemporary storytellers at work today.
COLM TOBN, author of Brooklyn
... there is not a more important writer working in Australia today.
Australian Bookseller & Publisher
... one of our most important novelists. Age
Tsiolkas has become that rarest kind of writer in Australia, a serious
literary writer who is also unputdownable, a mesmerising master of
how to tell a story. He has this ability more than any other writer in
the country ... PETER CRAVEN, Sun-Herald
One of the most astute chroniclers and critics of our age and culture,
Tsiolkas is a passionate, poetic, political polemicist, but his critiques
take the form of enthralling stories that are peopled with characters
that bounce off the page. Adelaide Advertiser
The sheer energy of Tsiolkas writingits urgency and passion
and sudden jags of tendernessis often an end in itself: a thrilling,
galvanising reminder of the capacity of ction to speak to the world it
inhabits. JAMES BRADLEY, Monthly
F I C T I O N
Cover design: Lisa White
Cover photograph: Antonio Ysursa
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MERCILESS.indd 1 10/09/2014 12:02 pm
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First published in 2014
Copyright Christos Tsiolkas 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 76011 205 9
Petals first published in Overland 216 Spring 2014
Hung Phat! first published in Below the Waterline, ed. Garry Disher, Harper Collins, 1999
Saturn Return first published in Blur, ed. James Bradley, Random House, 1996
Jessica Lange in Frances first published in Pub Fiction, ed. Leonie Stevens, Allen & Unwin,
1997
The Disco at the End of Communism first published in Brothers and Sisters, ed. Charlotte
Wood, Allen & Unwin, 2009
Sticks, Stones first published in the Get Reading! collection 10 Short Stories You Must Read in
2010, The Australia Council, 2010
Civil War first published in Picador New Writing 3, eds, Drusilla Modjeska and Beth Yahp,
Pan Macmillan, 1995
Porn 1 first published as The Pornographic Scientist in Readings and Writings: 40 Years in
Books, eds Jason Cotter and Michael Williams, 2010
Internal design by Lisa White
Set in 13/17 pt Monotype Bulmer by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper in this book is FSC
certified.
FSC