Today's Read Contributor Brandon Jack’s debut novel Pissants, released in July 2025, has stunned readers and critics alike with its brutal, unflinching look at toxic masculinity and marginalized AFL club culture. The book breaks with convention, opting for discomfort over catharsis in a narrative that evokes reactions ranging from admiration to unease.
Set at an unnamed AFL club, Pissants tracks a group of fringe players—nicknamed Fangs, Stick, Shaggers, Squidman, and others—who exist at the margins of elite sport. They seldom play in the senior team, instead bonding over drinking rituals, pranks such as kidnapping a dog, clandestine painkiller use, and humiliating social games. Through a kaleidoscopic structure that mixes monologues, found footnotes, WhatsApp messages, and editorial fragments, Jack constructs a fractured yet vivid portrait of life beneath the bright lights.
Jack’s writing style channels influences from Irvine Welsh, George Saunders, and the slang-infused chaos of Trainspotting. His prose alternates between profane, comedic aggression and moments of bleak introspection, depicting characters whose bravado masks deep existential dread. As a literary experiment, the structure resists neat arcs or redemption; instead, it offers introspective fragments and repeated rituals that reinforce the absence of narrative closure.
Many reviewers commend Jack’s fearless, unfiltered depiction of AFL’s underbelly. Some praise the book’s audacity, emotional resonance, and bold form, arguing that it goes deep inside the psyches of fringe players with raw honesty and flair. Others describe it as strangely heartfelt, even when brimming with puerile pranks and grotesque humor, citing its fragmented, genre-blurring storytelling as unconventional but powerful. Even readers on personal blogs have noted how the narrative’s intensity and unconventional approach remain deeply compelling despite—or because of—the lack of a central storyline.
However, critics question whether the novel ultimately critiques or inadvertently celebrates its subjects. While Jack’s narrative choice to withhold explicit authorial judgment can be read as subversive, some argue it may amount to moral abdication—that the novel presents toxic behavior without meaningful consequences or critique. Some emphasize that the novel’s reliance on repetition hints of indulgence rather than criticism, weakening its ethical clarity.
Jack himself insists that Pissants carries no overt message or moral stance. The story is fictional, he explains, despite echoes from his own five-year fringe AFL career with the Sydney Swans that included 28 senior games before being delisted in 2017. According to Jack, fiction allowed him to “twist and crank” the narrative far beyond memoir constraints—freeing him to explore multiple fragmented voices without anchoring them to reality.
He has also discussed the psychological underpinnings of footy culture, noting how masculine rituals and brutal conformity often stem from insecurity and a desperate thirst for belonging. He suggests that the novel illustrates characters constructing meaning amid purposelessness, rather than glamorizing their chaos.
Jack’s evolution from footy player to literary auteur highlights a shift in the public conversation about sports culture in Australia. His 2021 memoir 28 exposed the emotional toll of AFL life, and now Pissants forces readers to look beyond mythology to its darker, socially complex undercurrents. Through its language, fragmented storytelling, and unapologetic tone, Pissants resists sanitization and provokes reflection—on masculinity, mental health, belonging, and the institutions that construct identities in sport.
Pissants is an audacious and controversial debut novel that refuses to guide its reader to easy answers. With no redemption arc, a cast of deeply flawed characters, and brutal realism at its core, it invites questions: Is it condemnation, complicity, or uncomfortable reflection? Jack may not offer answers—but he exposes a world that few write about, and even fewer write with such unrelenting force.
