Wake In Fright

Wake in Fright tells the tale of John Grant’s journey into an alcoholic, sexual and spiritual nightmare. It is the original and the greatest outback horror story. Bundanyabba and its citizens will forever haunt its readers.


This edition includes an introduction by Peter Temple and an afterword by David Stratton.

Wake in Fright was made into a film in 1971, arguably the greatest film ever made in Australia. It starred Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, and Jack Thompson in his first screen role. Lost for many years, the restored film was re-released to acclaim in 2009.


Kenneth Cook was born in Sydney in 1929. Wake in Fright was published in 1961 to high praise in New York and London, and launched Cook’s writing career. Cook wrote twenty-one books in all, along with screenplays and scripts for radio and TV.


Peter Temple is one of Australia’s finest writers. His novel Truth won the 2010 Miles Franklin Award and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Temple has written nine novels and has been published in more than twenty countries.


David Stratton is co-presenter of At the Movies on ABC television and film critic for the Australian. He has also served as a President of the International Critics Jury for the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, written three books and is currently lecturing in Film History at the University of Sydney.


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‘It might be fifty years since the novel appeared yet it retains its freshness, its narrative still compels, and its bleak vision still disquiets.…Cook can make us feel the heat, see the endless horizon, hear the sad singing on a little train as it traverses the monotonous plain.’ Peter Temple, from the Introduction


‘Wake in Fright deserves its status as a modern classic. Cook’s prose is masterful and the story is gripping from the first page to the last.’ M. J. Hyland


‘A classic novel which became a classic film. The Outback without the sentimental bulldust. Australia without the sugar coating.’ Robert Drewe


‘Wake in Fright is a classic of the ugly side of Menzies’ Australia, its brutality, its drunkenness, its anxiety to crush all sensibility. All of this is harrowingly reacorded—the destruction of a young soul fresh to Australia—in Kenneth Cook’s remarkable novel.’ Thomas Keneally


‘A true dark classic of Australian literature.’ J. M. Coetzee

‘A chilling outback horror and an Australian classic.’ Guardian, Top 10 tales from the frontier