The circumstances around the publication of Dodge Rose, Jack Cox's début novel, have attracted considerable attention in Australian literary circles. A choice publicity tale as to how the novel was rescued from the slush pile by American publisher Dalkey Archive Press has contributed to this. So have claims advanced by Dalkey Archive that Dodge Rose is 'the most astonishing début of the decade', comparable with Samuel Beckett, William Gaddis, and Henry Green. Unusual too is the fact this high modernist 'anti-novel' by a young Australian author found a US publisher before an Australian one. Catriona Menzies-Pike, in the Sydney Review of Books, wrote a fascinating editorial on the pre-release buzz earlier this year.