Wasted

The True Story Of Jim McNeil, Violent Criminal and Brilliant Playwright

ROSS HONEYWILL

Viking, Biography & Autobiography

Paperback, 9780670073955

AUD $29.95 ex, AUD $32.95 inc
Out of stock at: 3 Feb 2012 19:00
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At 13, Jim McNeil quit school for good. At 14, he was introduced to Melbourne’s underworld. Despite his love of reading and philosophy, McNeil relished his life among thugs, thieves & whores, becoming one of the city’s most violent criminals. Sentenced to 17 years jail after shooting a policeman, he joined a reform group known as the Resurgents, where he was encouraged to write. When he wrote his first play, McNeil had never set foot in a theatre. Just 4 years later he was a celebrity, freed ten years early thanks to a powerful group of Sydney’s elite. But McNeil never wrote again. Pursued by Sydney society & lost in a world that lacked the strict regimen of prison life, he fell back into alcoholism & violence. He returned to the streets and was dead within a decade. His four plays stand as a testament to a talent sadly wasted.

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