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By: Robbie Coleman
Article published: 3rd Jul 09
Format: Book
Motivation: Good with a whiskey in the bath
What:
Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S. & Kerouac
Who:
Patrick O'Neil
Where:
All good bookstores
How much:
Around $35
Patrick O'Neil is loose and always has been.
So it's not hard to imagine that when the chain-smoking arts student from Melbourne was unleashed on the world with little more than a fedora and a fanciful ambition to become a writer, some strange and wonderful shit happened; baleful encounters in Amsterdam alleys, acid trips in the Sahara desert, stand-offs with Jamaican gangsters and teetering on refugee status in the middle of Eastern Europe.
But just as one of the book's major influences, Dr Thompson, ruminated, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Inherently weird, O'Neil expertly delves into the trials, freedoms and tribulations posed to a twenty-something scaling the world with no plans.
Sideways has a wonderful voice. It is raw, honest and unparalleled in its story-telling. O'Neil possesses the raw ability to inspire, and every one of his lucid descriptions makes you feel like jumping the next plane to Mexico and knocking on the door of peyote-induced psychosis.
My guess is that one day O'Neil is going to get so far out, he may never come back. In the interim, get a copy of Sideways, saunter down to the Black Cat, and ask him to sign your copy in exchange for a pot of lager.