Richard James Allen and Tug Dumbly at the launch of More Lies. Photo by Karen Pearlman Copyright (c) The Physical TV Company.
More Lies by Richard James Allen (Book 2021 and Audiobook 2025) Interactive Publications was launched by Tug Dumbly in the character of the ‘Hard-boiled poet’ – a Bogart-ish concoction, on Saturday August 9, 2025 at Better Read Than Dead bookshop in Newtown.
‘To begin at the beginning. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be stolen from you by a thieving author. By walking in here you have been implanted with the following terms: You have agreed to buy this book. The name of the perp, sorry author, is Richard James Allen – or RJA, or Raja, as he is better known to his minions.
Or is that his name? I’ve given up trying to tell. He is not only an unreliable narrator, he is an unreliable human being. Speaking of which, I myself am merely an AI holographic simulacrum by the name of Dumbly, a puppet who Allen has deviously lured into doing the dirty work of launching his alleged book. Oh, he tried to get other launchers. Tim Winton was unavailable due to bad hair. Bryce Courtney was unavailable due to death.
But yes, he roped me into it. Literally. In fact he blackmailed me. He claims to have unearthed some unsavoury facts about me. He says he has evidence that of the last 10 big International Poetry Prizes I’ve won, I plagiarised every poem. Preposterous. I only plagiarised 6. The rest were generated by monkeys.
Be that as it may, I’ve been invented, sorry ‘invited’, to launch this farrago of lies, this purported novel. But I don’t have to be happy about it, and I don’t have to be nice. The veracity of this work and its supposed author are best treated with chemical caution. Is it a text of contention, a web of confusion, a blizzard of bullcrap, or all of the above? – take your time, these are multiple choice. Answers will be collected at the end.
It calls itself More Lies, and in truth it does what it says on the box. Oh, the author might call it a playful little messing with the psyche, a meta-narrative trip through the dark disco ball of a writer’s skull, a psycho-illogical thriller with hard-boiled undertones and pulpish overtones, a part poetic narrative that binds and gags the reader and takes them hostage in the name of Black Art …
But yes, I’ve been instructed to say that by walking in here you have signed a blood contract. You won’t be allowed to leave until you buy the book. Preferably several copies, including one for your dog and dead grandmother. Don’t think I’m not serious. Each of you has been fitted with a tracking device which will administer you a piercing dose of a Mariah Carey Christmas Special should you try and exit the shop without buying this book. The “staff” of Better Read When Dead – and I use the word staff advisedly to cover their true designations as thugs, goons and standover booksellers – are trained in the deadliest of Martial Literature and will hit you with hours of arcane and impenetrable post-modern French theory if you try and escape without purchase. Yes, you can think of this as Squid Game, only for people who pretend to read anything beyond Tom Clancy.
But what more can I say? Quite a lot, apparently. Too much, and yet somehow never enough. And what I say will possibly all be lies in any case. More lies, to make this launch a big triple-decker sandwich of lies. You can’t say your weren’t warned.
[Takes off hat and reverts from character of Hard-boiled poet to Tug Dumbly]
Ok, that’s enough bad Boggart. Now I switch from Bad Tug, to Good Tug.
Richard James Allen, as his triple barrelled named suggests, is a multi-tasker. I, Tug Dumbly, am a humble mono-tasker. He is a poet, dancer, actor, screen producer, choreographer, yogi, archivist, chess master, film director and now novelist. I am a launcher of his book. Though lest I appear too self-effacing I might boast that I did once act opposite Richard in a film. It is a most excellent film called I want to make a film about women, made by the peerless Karen Pearlman, who I believe already knew Richard in some capacity before the film. Although I’m sure nepotism played no part in his involvement. Richard and I played a pair of famous Russian film directors. Yes, we were typecast. I was great Sergei Eisenstein opposite Richard’s Zeega Vertov. But ah, what a fraught shoot for me. I stewed in my caravan for days mentally perfecting my big scene with Richard, my 28 seconds of glory. Whereas he? Ha! He just breezed onto the set five minutes before his scene, after a three day Ovaltine binge, and wiped the floor with me. Yes, it was a lesson in the workings of a true pro, he the Method actor, me the Metho.
But back to the main theme – Richard’s book More Lies. This is a strange and twisted little piece of work. Blackish, Clownish, Hellish, Funnish. It squarely aims to discombobulate. It is a fractured narrative, a jagged jigsaw, threaded with poems, and shards of poems, to throw you on and off its pungent scent. It is part grilling, a Guantanamo interrogation, a Gestapo waterboarding, of writerly and real life reality. Are the narrator and the book in fact holding you, the reader, hostage? Are you the main suspect? Is this book spying on you? Is this meta-meta concoction, this gumbo, this ricochet of styles, this Pulp, Hard-boiled, Po-Mo, Potpourri in fact a hijack?!
To quote the great Stephen King – Richard Allen’s book ‘More Lie’s brazenly examines its own entrails like a coroner going through the guts of a month-old corpse … But on that piquant note, let’s get some answers from the horse’s mouth …
Let’s now make welcome the man of the moment, the minute, the millennium, and apply a gentle blowtorch to the belly of Mr Richard James Allen! …
– Tug Dumbly
Tug Dumbly is the pen and stage name of Geoff Forrester, a Nowra-born poet and performer who has lived in Sydney for millennia. He has worked lots in radio, venues and schools, and founded a couple of legendary poetry nights in Sydney. He has performed his work as resident-poet on ABC radio (Triple J, ABC 702), and released two spoken-word CDs through the ABC. His awards include the Banjo Paterson Prize for Comic Verse (twice), and Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup (thrice). He won the Reciter of the Year award at last year’s National Folk Festival. His poems have appeared in many publications, and he has been shortlisted many times for big awards. In 2020 he won the Borranga Poetry Prize, in 2022 he won the Woorilla Poetry Prize, and in 2023 he won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize. His first poetry book, Son Songs, came out in 2018 through Flying Island Books. His latest book Tadpoems, also through Flying Islands, came out last year. He is also a singer-songwriter who likes nature and ruined buildings. He plans to be famous in the grave.
More Lies by Richard James Allen is available from https://ipoz.biz/product/more-lies/. Audiobook is also available from https://www.audible.com.au/pd/More-Lies-Audiobook/B0FTPTTWFD
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