A dark and compelling work by a new voice in Australian – and world – literary fiction.
BASIN
by Scott McCulloch
Black Inc. (Australia), June 2022
A nomad swallows poison and drowns himself. Resuscitated by a paramilitary bandit named Aslan, Figure is nursed back into a world of violence, sexuality and dementia. Together, Figure and Aslan traverse a coastline erupting in conflict. When the nearest city is ethnically cleansed, Figure escapes on the last ship evacuating to the other isle of the sea. Crossing village to village largely on foot, a slew of outcasts and ghosts guide him as he navigates states of cultural and metaphysical crisis.
Scott McCulloch’s debut novel, BASIN, explores the axis of landscape and consciousness. Echoing the modernist tradition, and written in an incendiary yet elliptical prose style, BASIN maps the phenomenon of a civilisation being reborn – a hallucinatory elegy to the inter-zones of self and place.
Born in Melbourne, based between Ukraine and the Caucasus since 2014, and having recently moved to the Mediterranean, where he divides his time between Greece and Lebanon, Scott McCulloch works with prose, essay and sound. His writings have appeared in Southerly, Australian Book Review, Art & Australia, Magazine, Kill Your Darlings and elsewhere. BASIN is his
debut novel.
Maggie Hoyt is a quick-witted, house-sitting LA actress who’s dated one too many DJs. One night, while still grieving the death of her ex-boyfriend, she meets Rob, a charming tattoo artist who makes her feel like her best self—a feeling she hasn’t experienced in a long time. Their attraction for one another is electrifying and instantaneous. There’s just one problem: he’s married. Their precarious relationship forces Maggie to confront the love she’s been looking for, the guilt she’s been harboring, the grief she’s been hiding, and the woman she wants to be. 
Belleville 1860: Lavender Fitch is a twenty-eightyear-old spinster, whose station in life is diminished after the death of her father, the local apothecary. Her only inheritance is the family house along with its extensive gardens. To make ends meet, Lavender resorts to selling flowers at the local market.
When Alana Shropshire hears from her brothers, Teddy and Martin, complaining about Kelly, the 28-year-old “gold-digger” their 76-year-old father has taken up with, she ignores them. A single mom with a disabled daughter, Alana has more important things on her mind and has long since left her dysfunctional family behind. But her brothers persist, and eventually, she relents. In exchange for sorely needed payment, Alana flies to her father’s private island retreat to perform one tiny task in Teddy and Martin’s simple plan to make the gold-digger go away. 
Max Moody is in his 30s and thinks he has everything figured out, not the least of which is the best-of-best-friends a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She grew up with Max. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She is always a reliable splunch (NOT brunch) partner. But then everything in Max’s life is turned upside down when Paige announces some big news: she’s engaged! And it turns out there’s not just one new man in Paige’s life… There are two. The groom, who’s a perfectly nice guy. And his charming, younger, and…really (really) hot gay brother, Chasten. As Paige’s wedding draws closer, Max and Chasten realize they’re like oil and water, yet they still have to figure out how to co-exist in Paige’s life while not making her wedding all about them. But can the tiny spark between them elevate their best man roles in a wedding to the best man in each other’s lives?