The novel follows the life of Jack Trap, a man living on the outskirts of Melbourne in the 1960s. Trap is of mixed Irish, English and Aboriginal background, in his forties and fat. He joins with a small group of outsiders and travels to a mining lease on Cape York to form a co-operative community.
Critical reception
In The Canberra Times Maurice Dunlevy found that the attempted satire fell well short of its target: "Trap is a first novel and reads like one. It attempts to be satirical, shocking and avant garde — succeeds only in being naive...His irony is too heavy, his targets are too obvious and he never cuts deeper than satirical revue."[3]
Roger Milliss in the Tribune (Sydney), found "The style is often reminiscent of that of Patrick White's admittedly not-very-edifying satires of suburbia. And, dealing as it does with the aboriginal question (if Mr. Mathers' complex theme can be summed up so inadequately), it possesses some generic connections with a whole stream of our writing, from Coonardoo on."[4]
Publication history
Following the novel's initial publication by Cassell in 1966,[5] the book was published as follows:
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