Albert, our hero, is a duck-billed platypus, one of those venomous, aquatic, egg-laying mammals that inspired cries of hoax among European naturalists when the discovery of the antipodean species was first announced. In this quirky novel for adults, the platypus still plays the role of an unlikely curiosity. He’s a recent escapee from the Adelaide zoo, with only a soft-drinks bottle to call his own, on a search for Old Australia, a “Promised Land” of liberty and justice that the other captive animals used to talk about.
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