‘An unflinching memoir of poverty, domestic violence and alcoholism that plays out in the murky tank stream beneath one of the brightest and gaudiest places on earth – the Gold Coast of the 1980s. Sneddon’s heartbreaking drama is also riven with flashbacks from ancient civilisation, giving it at once a universality that both illuminates and compounds his insights into the human condition. As the story unfolds we’re reminded of how brilliant the human race has been, and also how utterly predictable and incapable of learning from its own past. Sneddon brilliantly captures the Gold Coast’s recent history – the spivs, the crims, the booze, the pawn shops, the high-rise apartments and beer gardens, the violent husbands and apathetic police, all played out against the relentless and unchanged music of happy tourists and the relentless wash of the ocean. Prehistoric Joy is not for the feint-hearted, but it tackles the age-old malevolence of domestic violence with a fresh, original and empathic eye, and Sneddon’s writing contains both the sharpness of a blade and the warmth of hope. Bold, brutal and unforgettable.’