I Woke Up Feeling Thailand

A hilarious tale of cheap drugs, cheap sex and teaching English - on the cheap!

The first edition of "I Woke Up Feeling Thailand" was written between 2002 and 2004, after the author returned from an eye-opening stint observing the lifestyles of English teachers in the Kingdom of Siam.

After making the short-list for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Novel, the manuscript was soon picked up by Sid Harta Publishers in Hartwell, Australia (but published in hard copy only) in December 2004, and that's how the life of Dr Bruno Starrs' first ever full-length novel began.

So what's the "I Woke Up Feeling Thailand" story?

Cover Blurb: "Thailand has many attractions. For Candy, straight from a Texas trailer park, it's the cheap drugs. For Leo, a hip-hoppin' California dude, it's the cheap drugs and the cheap sex. For Bayard, a pompous graduate of Cambridge with a major in Inconsequential Semantics, it's the opportunity to make a small fortune out of the English-teaching industry ... on the cheap. But for all three, Thailand is where blue-eyed, blonde-haired Westerners such as they have been mysteriously disappearing ..."

Back in 2004, reviewers were saying things like:

"A remarkable new talent. Starrs' hilarious parody of Westerners adrift in small town Thailand is destined to become a backpacker's favourite" - Barry Scott, Founder "Transit Lounge Publishing" and author of "Love and Wigs: Poems of Bangkok, Bollywood and Beyond" (Transit Lounge, 2003).

Others have not been so kind, describing "I Woke Up Feeling Thailand" as "Ugly drivel" (Anonymous Internet Troll, 2017) and the "Digital equivalent of pulp fiction" (Another Anonymous Internet Troll, 2017). Dr Starrs remains unfazed: He wears these literary taxonomic distinctions with great pride and authorial abandon!