The new book from the bestselling author of Flesh Wounds. A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be – and just how far we have come.

There’s plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like?

In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It’s a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and now and then surprisingly appealing.

It’s the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Let’s break the news now: they didn’t have avocado.

It’s a place of funny clothing and food that was appalling, but amusingly so. It is also the land of staggeringly awful attitudes – often enshrined in law – towards anybody who didn’t fit in.

The Land Before Avocado will make you laugh and cry, feel angry and inspired. And leave you wondering how bizarre things were, not so long ago.

Most of all, it will make you realise just how far we’ve come – and how much further we can go.

'This is vintage Glover – warm, wise and very, very funny. Brimming with excruciating insights into life in the late sixties and early seventies, The Land Before Avocado explains why this was the cultural revolution we had to have.' Hugh Mackay

'Hilarious and horrifying, this is the ultimate intergenerational conversation starter.' Annabel Crabb