The few facts known about Gould include his imprisonment as a transported convict in Van Diemans Land, Tasmania; that he painted fish; that he had many aliases and that he drowned in an attempted escape on February 29, 1831. In this weird and surrealistic book, Gould fantasises with much seductive black humour on his fate, telling us much more than about the living hell of a doomed man in a 19th C penal colony.
(James Baker - bwl 17 February 2003 ) |
