The prequel to the award-winning Praise, this book is marginally better than that empty outing. The plot has all kinds of interesting possibilities: two 21ish guys (one painter, one writer) who just met decide to take a 6-month job as weather observers on a national park out in the middle of nowhere. But not much happens to the two losers since they don't make any effort to do anything except get drunk and stoned all the time. There's no great conflict, no insights gained, and perhaps that is the point Mcgahan is trying to make about that generation of Australian youth. Or at least a certain segment of them. Either way, there's got to be a more interesting way of making the point.

Andrew McGahan won the Vogel Award (Australia's most well-known award for previously unpublished young writers)for "Praise" but I think 1988, the subsequent prequel, is much better. I was really surprised at the number of negative reviews essentially saying this book was eventless, meaningless and a waste of time. 1988 is not written in a style that is easy to swallow: McGahan's writes flat, almost ugly prose that is distinctly "anti-literary", and it seems like a lot of readers haven't been able to get beyond that. But you can't confuse a character's meaningless existence with a meaningless novel.I guess the written word carries a certain aesthetic responsibility that the spoken work doesn't. We expect the language of novels to have some kind of "beauty". Bret Easton Ellis started to challenge some of these expectations and got a lot of criticism for it. But even Ellis' so-called "anti-glamour" approach is highly stylised.McGahan however, writes like someone would speak -or at least how his characters would speak. Plain language. It's not something we're used to in novels - we expect imagery, metaphors, some kind of artistic take on the uglier aspects of life. But McGahan refuses to give us that - boredom, inadequacy, lack of ambition - he shows it as it is and refuses to glamourise it. Nor does he condemn it. That's the strength of this book - it's not a moral judgement on the twenty-something generation but it's not about mindless amorality. I loved the way it was written - refreshingly unpretentious, and funny too. I was surprised no-one else mentioned there is a real humour in this book. It's subtle and deadpan but maybe not that easy to pick up. I also wondered to what extent the ability to enjoy this book was a cultural thing. I noticed that most of the people who didn't get anything out of it were not from Australia, whereas most of those who loved it, were.

I think other reviewers are over-analysing this book - perhaps they don't "get it"? 1988 was the bi-centenial year for Australia. Instead of celebrating it, these two guys decide to leave the city and take a job in one of the most remote parts of the country! Great idea! or so it seems.

I found this book very funny, and have bought it as a present for friends who loved it. Praise (also by McGahan and now a Film) has a much "darker" humour, but is just as "real life". 1988 is not set in the Outback, as other reviewers have said. It's set in the far north of Australia, on the coast. This environment is quite different, and interesting as a predicament. The fact that it is so isolated is what makes 1988 so funny.

I suspect the humour in 1988 just doesn't translate very well. And that's ok.

Comparisons to Salinger don't make sense to me. This is no Catcher in the Rye (1951). It's Australia today. A closer comparison might be John Birmingham's The Tasmanian Babe Fiasco, another Australian writer with a contemporary-Brisbane focus.

I've just started reading McGahan's third Book "Last Drinks". It's very good too. His first fictional work, set around the Brisbane Inquiry into official corruption.

Has to be one of the more important pieces of Australian literature of the last ten years. McGahan's simple, but gripping prose sets the scene of a place where people have no dreams to realise, where sex,alcohol,drugs and cigarettes are thrown in together to create a recipe of despair, sadness, humor and loss. Definetely not for the faint hearted, this is unputdownable. A modern masterpiece.

A well written and engaging novel that is a fast read. I enjoyed this book very much.

The tone of the book does get a little dark at times but McGahan keeps it moving along so that it doesn't become oppressive.

I loved the first person narration and also that the narrator wasn't totally reliable; you had to second guess him some of the time.

I definitely would recommend it to anyone who can handle their prose somewhat raw but very engaging.

I'll keep it short- I'm still basking in the afterglow. Brilliant, honest and extremely addictive. An absolute must.