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Loaded
Loaded
Jan 16, 2026 3:23 AM

Author:Christos Tsiolkas

Loaded

Discover the explosive first novel from the author of The Slap

Ari is nineteen, Greek, gay, unemployed, looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. Torn between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs and drugs and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only way he knows how.

'One of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today' Colm Tóibín

'An addictive read' Stylist

Reviews

An addictive read... Loaded is a must for your suitcase

—— Stylist

Loaded is a high-octane, drug- and sex-fuelled romp through 24 hours in the life of Ari, a 19-year-old Greek-Australian gay man living on the margins of society. ... there is such a remarkable energy about Ari's narrative in Loaded, and so much self-aware humour and pathos, that it is utterly absorbing, and reminiscent in that respect of such debut novels as Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero or Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Loaded is a glorious, almighty "fuck you" to Australian society, a primal howl of angst and anguish.

—— Doug Johnstone , Independent on Sunday

Praise for The Slap: Nothing short of a tour de force. Tsiolkas outs a microscope to family life and presents us with a vision both of unflinching honesty and great tenderness. Here is a novel of immense power and scope, reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Don De Lillo's Underworld

—— Colm Toibin

A fantastic, slam-bang-overdrive, supersurrealistic, comic-spooky whirl through a tomorrow that is already happening. Stephenson is intelligent, perceptive, hip

—— Timothy Leary

Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed

—— Washington Post

A fun read, the novel's charm lies in its quirky humour

—— Elizabeth Buchan , The Sunday Times

This is poignant, quirky and delightfully original

—— Woman & Home

Confirms that she's a writer to watch

—— Bella

A delightful tale

—— Good Housekeeping

This is an assured second novel - and wonderful company for that long-overdue summer trip

—— Press Assocation

Imaginative and transporting, but entirely unfussy and unsentimental, the novel is written with a glint in the eye that gives it that extra bit of wind beneath its wings

—— Nicola Barr , Guardian
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