Off the Record

`Sherborne's talents with narrative and poetry combine to produce a striking fiction...offering a unique, vivid portrait of his characters. With the crystallisation and compression of poetry, Sherborne explores ideas of property, freedom and loyalty, and produces a novel as beautiful in its conjunctions as the chandelier swinging over its landscapes. ' * The Australian on Tree Palace * 'A riveting piece of writing that is liable to transfix any reader who gets past the opening chapter...Sherborne is a breathtaking writer because he writes of unspeakable things with a kind of affectless gaucherie that dazzles the mind...this is an engulfing, heart-stopping book - a performance that dazzles the eyes and leaves the reader gasping for air.' * the Age on The Amateur Science of Love * `Off the Record, a page-turner so scorching it makes realism seem like a form of pornography, is about sensationalist and exploitative journalism...The narrator is such a supreme wordsmith, as Sherborne was and is, that he is known as Words, and boy can he use them as acid and anthrax in the world's water supply...It is part of Sherborne's genius - it's not too big a word - to revile and deconstruct every tabernacle of good taste...Pacy, sleek, muscled...A mesmerising portrait of how a creep of a guy (who can look very much like you or me) can weave a web in which he finds himself.' -- Peter Craven * Australian * 'Sharp, taut and sizzlingly mean, Off The Record paints a biting portrait of a hard-boiled hack you would not want on your back...It is an expertly crafted almost-satire, that, though billed as dark comedy, is a cautionary tale about the true cost of selling your professional and creative soul, and of unbridled vanity. Ruthlessly riveting.' * Herald Sun *