'A heart that could be strong and true': Kenneth Cook's Wake in Fright as queer interior1

According to director Ted Kotcheff, at one of the first screenings of the film, a man jumped out of his chair and yelled 'That's not us' at the screen.4 What is this recognition of a non-recognition that dominates reception of Wake in Fright? Wake in Fright begins with the schoolteacher, John Grant, lamenting his enforced position as a teacher in a small school in a remote town called Tiboonda where 'there is no sewerage, there are no hospitals, rarely a doctor ... electricity is for the few who can afford their own plant ... no picture shows and few dance halls; and the people are saved from stark insanity by the one strong principle of progress that is ingrained for a thousand miles east, north, south and west of the Dead Heart-the beer is always cold' (8). [...]as I've argued here, it's possible that at the heart of Cook's and his character's hatred may also be hatred's counterpart, that is an intense sexual pleasure. According to Peter Temple, Anthony Boucher reviewed the book favourably in the New York Times. 3 See, for example, in Mayer and McFarlane, the note that Wake in Fright was one of 'the finest films made in Australia' (122).