An Argument Against the Utopian Theory of Inevitable Progress, Demonstrated via the Cover Designs for a Barry Humphries Novel

CAUSTIC COVER CRITIC: In 1995, actor and chameleon Barry Humphries published Women in the Background, a scathing novel about the life of an Australian man who has found fame dressing up as an outrageous housewife-superstar ("Mrs Petty"), and who meets a dark and sticky end. It's one of the most intriguingly self-loathing bits of thinly disguised autobiography I've ever read, and not a bad novel in its own right.