Meet the foolish forger and cuckolded convict Henry Savery, described by Tom Keneally as 'a man whose own story is as picaresque as anything inside the covers of a novel.' Born to fortune but spurned by fate, a single act of folly launches young Henry into an extraordinary spiral of calamity. Banished to the end of the earth, bankrupt and betrayed, denied even the sanctuary of death, he surveys the gothic ruins of his past from an empty Hobart Town gaol cell and begins pouring out the story of his tortured journey – conjuring a thinly veiled autobiography that will become Australia's first published novel. Includes video of author Rod Howard in conversation with former lawyer Andrew Fraser at the Melbourne launch.