In Melbourne in the late 1940s, a young conservative poet named Christopher Chubb decides to teach his country a lesson about pretension and authenticity. But over the ensuing years his audacious act of literary ventriloquism takes on a much darker resonance. Having fled Melbourne for the seedy, sweaty streets of Kuala Lumpur, Chubb finds himself, just as Frankenstein was, haunted and pursued by his own creation.