Do you think its right for a fourteen year old boy to tell an elder to piss off? Or how about having lack of respect for other people's property, by simply destroying it? Or even being so self absorbed you become blatant to the world around you? Toff Briceland, a character in the novel `Drylands', is a devious brat who sets out with a passion to make other people's lives miserable. Thea Astley, the author of the novel explores the attitudes of a teenage `pest' in the way that they fit in with to title of `Drylands'. Toff is the perfect example of the "lack of life and hope' that the town of Drylands symbolises.

Australia is presented as a dry place, a landscape which offers little scope for comfort or retreat. Drylands is a novel that presents a picture of Australia that is quite contrary to the...