https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/25/gabriel-bergmoser-there-is-a-brand-of-country-australian-masculinity-that-is-particularly-threatening

The 28-year-old’s gripping horror debut The Hunted has already landed a film deal. He talks about writing Amish erotica and his theory about small Australian towns

Gabriel Bergmoser’s debut adult novel, The Hunted, is dark as all get-out, an Australian horror-thriller that manages to combine Wolf Creek, The Hills Have Eyes and On the Road, with a sprinkling of Deliverance for good measure. When he first sent it to a potential literary agent, Bergmoser was “convinced it would be too much, that they would say, ‘Never darken our doorstep again’”.

It’s not hard to understand his trepidation. The novel follows Simon, your average, naive young backpacker who is out to discover the real Australia, that “country of tough extremes that had never truly been tamed”, which he can’t find in Melbourne. When he meets up with the beautiful Maggie, he’s persuaded into going far off the beaten track until they run into some locals, out “huntin’ pigs”, who bring them back to their isolated small town for a few nights.