A working-class Welshman uproots himself and tries his luck on the far side of the globe. Is he broadening his horizons or trying to shake off something that won’t let him go? Seems like no matter where he ends up—in heat-drenched Hanoi or the Australian outback, in a Canadian flophouse or the wilds of New Zealand—the work is still menial, the bosses are still bastards, and the pay disappears before the week does.

But forget about self-discovery and coming-of-age clichés. Fly Like a Dead Possum isn’t that kind of book. Fierce and funny, grim and grotesque, it has no patience for the lie that suffering builds character. Channelling the blunt, jaded humour of Charles Bukowski with the raw, unsparing energy of Irvine Welsh, this collection of stories finds a world-weary nomad on the run from the devil, hounded by humiliations, driven by a hunger for whatever temporary escape he can afford. As grimy and desperate as it is perceptive and poetic, it’s the howl of a wandering soul whose illusions of dignity have been stripped away by life.