The nouveau-riche Sherbornes have moved from the city to start a new, gentrified existence on a 300-acre farm (or 'estate') in Taonga, New Zealand. But life on the farm is anything but wholesome. Sherborne evokes his family's slide into madness and misery through a series of unforgettable portraits: of 'Feet', his once glamorous mother, now addled with snobbery, paranoia and mental illness; of 'The Duke', his weakly uncomprehending, sporadically violent father; and of himself, the 'Lord Muck' of the title, at once helpless victim and ruthless agent of their undoing.

Clear-sighted, lyrical and marvellously funny, Muck was widely hailed as a masterpiece on publication in Australia. It is a brutally honest study of domestic un-bliss, and an exquisite portrait of a young artist in search of a self.