Amorality ….. Gruesome and nasty and gritty, yes; as amazing as Tsiolkas' blurb seems to suggest, no. I quite enjoyed this as a surprisingly - and gratifyingly - understated amorality tale but the downside of an alienated, disassociated, unconnecting central character being an alienated, disassociated, unconnecting central chap is that he doesn't really get into your head (so the ultimate "I could be out there..." sort of ending doesn't really come off as frightening. And the "New Punk" stuff doesn't really work, except to the extent that it's part of said chap's security blanket.

Nevertheless, worth a look: lovely clear writing, very nasty vision, a distinctly modern-Australian young voice; Hutchinson's someone to watch.

"Rohypnol  is a phenomenally assured first novel, tough and hard, dangerous and menacing, a vivid exploration of an amoral - if not evil - landscape. What commands respect is the power and uniqueness of the voice, the writer's mastery and self-discipline. There's no fat, no pretension, no indulgence.  Rohypnol is an exhilarating, terrifying read and Andrew Hutchinson is the real deal: a genuine new voice in Australian writing. This book is an absolute knockout."  —Christos Tsiolkas

"[...]The best debut novel of the year, was Andrew Hutchinson's Rohypnol. An unflinching depiction of youthful nihilism and amorality, Rohypnol probes a culture of drug abuse and date rape most Australians would prefer to ignore. But it's also utterly convincing and completely rivetting - I read it in one sitting."  —Andy Murdoch, MX Magazine

"It is an accomplished cautionary tale that surprises and unsettles the reader."  —Arts Minister Mary Delahunty

MADE ME FEEL SICK   …….. Amazingly crafted, made me feel sick to my stomach.

I am delighted to not know any people that fit this story, however I can see that it is all too shockingly real.

SHUDDER ……   THE most disturbing book I've ever read. And really very well written. Can't say I'll re-read it though. Once you figure out exactly what the front cover illustrates... *shudder*

The Age Review ..  THE MODUS OPERANDI OF Andrew Hutchinson's charmless mob in Rohypnol is simple: they roam nightclubs and upon seeing a suitable target, spike her drink, lure her back to their houses and (pack) rape the semi-conscious girl before dumping her. If anyone tries to separate them from their prey, a judicious spot of violence usually does the trick.

The title refers to the notorious date-rape drug that sedates its victims, leaving them as floppy as rag dolls, disoriented and vulnerable to all sorts of mischief, including, but not only, sexploitation.

Hutchinson's debut novel, which won last year's Victorian Premier's award for an unpublished manuscript by an emerging writer, owes quite a bit to A Clockwork Orange.

Once again, male delinquency and criminality stomp all over the pages of Rohypnol, leaving bloody smears and bodily fluids behind. Like Alex and his "droogs", Hutchinson's gang occupies an ugly amoral landscape dotted with sex and violence. With sneering contempt for authority and confident of their invincibility, these antisocial elements terrorise their local neighbourhood in their hunt for alluring but unwilling flesh.

However, similarities aside, there is none of Anthony Burgess' inventive language and flights of lyricism. Hutchinson's prose doesn't offer any embellishment; it's artless, deliberately flat and laced with obscenities, with sentences as short and sharp as a punch. ("I've seen and done things you'd be afraid to even think about. I've watched it happen and done nothing to stop it. And I don't feel one bit bad about it.") There's no subtlety and certainly no beauty.

The unnamed narrator, already a rebellious misfit who was expelled from his previous school, inadvertently but willingly becomes enlisted in the escapades. He joins leader Thorley, the brains behind the outfit, Troy the steroid-pumped musclehead, Harris the moneybags and Uncle the drug dealer.

Just in case we can't quite grasp the group's base motivations, Hutchinson helpfully and self-consciously italicises their manifesto throughout the book. Hoodlums by any other name, they are apparently part of "the New Punk", a collective of sorts that believes in self-gratification first and foremost: "No restrictions. No rule book ... (it's about) taking control. Seeing what you want and taking it, no matter the cost." Aside from smug, fervent individualism, their philosophy also advocates revenge: "If someone breaks your pencil, you break his fingers ... The New Punk is not about remorse."

It comes as little surprise to discover in the acknowledgements that Christos Tsiolkas was Hutchinson's mentor; the nihilistic, angry-young-men framework of this novel is not dissimilar to some of Tsiolkas' bleakest work. Moreover, Rohypnol also has echoes of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho in its brutal treatment of sexual violence and psychopathic thrillseekers.

Notwithstanding its range of influences and literary predecessors, there's a facile and posturing tough-guy quality to this novel. Offering shock value is easy but Hutchinson isn't interested in providing any reasons behind the transgressions of these teenage marauders.

These so-called New Punks are white, spoilt, middle-class, private-schooled, affluent. They don't appear to have been psychologically damaged in any way that would explain their behaviours. The reader is simply asked to accept their innate "badness". ("Fact: Bad people do bad things.") The narrator's tone is dispassionate and defiantly matter-of-fact when recounting their various misdemeanours.

It's part of his therapy, writing and confessing their crimes some time after the fact. Far from being conscience-stricken, he's proudly unrepentant to the very end, happily baiting his female psychologist, imagining her naked and at his mercy.

Rohypnol tries a bit too hard to impress by following the "boys behaving badly and lashing out at society's moralistic strictures" template, but we've read it all before and it doesn't offer anything else to this particular sub-genre.

Andrew Hutchinson is a guest at the Age Melbourne Writers' Festival

Online review  .. Angela Meyer … Rohypnol  is about bad people. They follow the rules of the ‘new punk’, meaning that they can take what they want, when they want it. They are young, male, rich, and live by the motto – ‘f**k people’. The group’s main activity is spiking the drinks of women and raping them. Who would want to read about this? The book is horrific, sickening and difficult. It is also skillful, probing and fresh. Andrew Hutchinson gives his characters no motivational aspects – no sob-story childhoods, no incidents that made them what they are. The narrator just repeats that he is a bad person and knows it. It is challenging and stimulating for the reader to fill in the gaps. It allows a deep engagement with the voice and the narrative. Like Lolita, it both sickens and compels you. Without giving away the ending, a certain amount of justice is performed, but not to all. By the close you don’t understand the character any better, and put the book down with a sense of horror that there are really human beings who exist like that.

Andrew Hutchinson, speaking at the Newcastle Young Writers’ Festival, said that he wrote the book as a way of trying to understand something he simply couldn’t comprehend. One gets the sense that he came out of it still baffled by men who ‘date rape’. One theme that emerges throughout the ‘new punk’ spiels, and the rules of the group, is that of consumerist society and materialism being an influence on such behaviour. The characters are young, with an ‘I want it all and I want it now’ attitude. They are independent from their families, and would even turn on each other. This also thus reflects Western individualism.

Rohypnol is for readers who can handle grit, and who like to be challenged and stimulated by their literature. It will be very interesting to see Hutchinson’s skills develop in his next novel. After a book with such a strong character voice, I’d love to see him flex his prose muscles on a character/characters with more constructed depth, whilst maintaining that baffled search for meaning through aspects of society’s senselessness.

An Eye Opening, Well Conceived Work of Literary Art, …..Andrew Hutchinson is in my opinion a Literary Genius. Rohypnol is a heart-wrenching read for any Father raising a daughter. As Mr Hutchinson says himself, "It is not for the faint of heart". The language and plot are troublesome, but are necessary to build the scenes and the characters that are portrayed. Though a work of fiction, this is a very "Real" and disturbing set of truths. A must read if you have children!