The Degenerates by Raeden Richardson is an exquisite tale of characters and what it means to be human - the struggle, the grief, the small joys.

Starting in India, traversing to Melbourne, I was immediately intrenched in the story of Maha. But when Titch came along I was addicted to reading his story. While the author's voice was so very clear in all aspects of this book, I felt each character was so uniquely its own, by the way they were written, what they said and what played out. This felt like short stories, interconnected, but they could have stood alone.

Often I felt that we were just getting started with one story before we leapt into another as the reader. Richardson has a distinct style that favours both the character and the settings they are absorbed in. I loved the descriptions of Melbourne that were clear and dirty and magical.

I thought The Degenerates was a wild but totally readable story. I found Richardson's writing unlike anything I've read before, and I will, for sure, be picking up their next novel.

The Degenerates opens in India in the early 1970's, at the time of the Emergency. I found this section rich and fascinating and would have liked to learn more, but this turns out to be only a jumping off point. We follow one man in his migration journey from Bombay to Melbourne, Australia, and within a few short pages the story fast-forwards us into contemporary Melbourne, which is the setting for the rest of the book.

We meet several people during the course of the book, with each new person's individual story unfolding one after the other. For much of the time I felt like I was reading a collection of loosely connected character studies, but it was enjoyable so I was happy to go with the flow, and it was satisfying when the characters did all eventually come together again.

The omniscient narrative style has the feel of a fable, with a clear delight in storytelling, vivid and propulsive prose, and a lot of alliteration. While the Melbourne depicted in these pages is bleak and isolating, and the individual stories echo this mood, the darkness of the novel's content is balanced and alleviated by the joy in the narrative voice.

I live in Melbourne, and I liked that the local streets and locations mentioned were both familiar and at the same time disturbingly alien, as if they had somehow slipped and shifted slightly in space and time. This unsettling feeling runs throughout the book, ramping up towards the end as we are pulled along in a kind of stream-of-consciousness fever dream of freedom and escape.

Ironically, in a book that is about the power of storytelling to generate compassion and empathy, for some reason I did not feel any emotional connection with the characters. Perhaps the distinctive narrative voice, although enjoyable, was too distancing for me. But this is still a good read, refreshingly different from anything else I have picked up recently. Full credit goes to the author for being willing to take a risk with the structure and tone of his novel.

This honest review has been provided in return for an ARC through NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this novel more than I expected and truly don't have words to describe it. An heartbreaking portrait of grief in it's many waysand a story that tells us we're not so different from each other. all we have to do is listen.

I really wanted to like this book, and I really didn't.
I found it hard to get into the writing style, and I found it even harder to care about the selfish and venal characters.

I’ve lost count of how many amazing Australian new releases I’ve read this year, and I think this might nearly top that list! I’m not sure how or where to begin talking about THE DEGENERATES by Raeden Richardson but this debut is extraordinary.

It opens in Bombay in the 70’s, where local shoeshiner Somnath is subjected to a government-enforced sterilisation procedure before fleeing to Melbourne. Years later in Melbourne, there’s Titch, a teenager grieving and growing up after his best mate takes his own life. We also meet Ginny, a bookseller with a talent for trading cryptocurrency whose brief time spent in New York gives her the push she’s been looking for her to escape. Connecting these figures for the reader is Maha, living in an illegal underground garage near Degraves Street. She listens to the stories of these social outcasts and many others, recording their histories and holding space when these people, The Degenerates, have become pushed to, and all but lost in, the margins.

This is a wholly original, unpredictable story that definitely requires you to suspend any need for realism, trust the author knows what they’re doing and let them take you where they’re going. But if you do, you’re rewarded with a visceral, stylish and unconventional narrative that strikes at the heart of human connection in a modern age of crippling loneliness. Each character is in a struggle to step up and out of their lives for something better. Their situations are often grim and dark but they’re offered a light with Maha’s guidance.

The book is structurally really interesting too. I often had to remind myself I wasn’t reading a short story collection, such is the way we zoom in and out of each character’s world which are so all-consuming. Without giving away any spoilers, once I realised why it’s structured the way it is though (this is revealed fairly early on), I knew for sure that I had a very cleverly crafted book in my hands.

I’m a Melbournian, and this had some of the most vivid writing of streets, landmarks and moments in my hometown that I’ve ever read. I’ll never look at Melbourne the same way ever again.

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