Joseph’s Career

Joseph is young and wealthy, with no need to work. One day, on a whim, he decides he needs to get a job. Choosing a city building at random, he gets in a lift and ends up in an employment agency called ‘White World’ where, through his own foolishness, he gets the job he did not want. Joseph’s subsequent travels take him through four surreal worlds, each representing different aspects of capitalism and raising questions about the nature of self-determination and agency in money-driven societies. Joseph’s career takes him through the white anthill of the worker, to the darkness of ruthless desert, to a grey film studio complex of fear and finally to the Farm. The protagonist starts out as a selfish fool. However, his experiences change him into a complex man who is looking for his true self.

Rory was born in London UK in 1951 to a Jewish mother and Irish father. The family moved around the London suburbs often, from Lewisham to Stanwell, before migrating as a family to Australia in 1963 and settling in Melbourne, Victoria. Rory wrote poetry and songs in his teens and early adulthood. He began writing poetry again in his fifties and sixties, publishing two collections of poetry as gifts for his friends. Bob Dylan has been a big influence on Rory’s writings, along with Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Also reading authors such as George Orwell, Albert Camus and Kafka has influenced Rory’s writing and his way of life. He lives in Crib Point in Victoria, Australia, writing every day while still working in construction, as he has done for most of his working life. Joseph’s Career is his first published novel.