And You May Find Yourself is full of sarcasm and calamity, incited by Dalgarno's inability to make sense of his new, Australian context; his Scottish mattress becomes vital, because it is a place he recognises. But in the end (and in one of Dalgarno's new-found Australian phrases), it doesn't make a 'bee's dick of difference', because Melbourne's suburbs seem like dangerous places, where 'insanity [is] kept in check with gloves and secateurs'. This revulsion at suburbia works in contrast with the respect for family that Dalgarno is able to articulate. Tiny tragedies are drawn with weight and sensitivity, as are the surreal realities of the immigrant experience. Leaving behind a grandfather, Dalgarno imagines him 'morphing from skin and bone to shaky handwriting on future Christmas cards'.

There is a chaotic backcloth to And You May Find Yourself. But the pace at which it shifts does not feel too fast; the message is that this is what life is like. In this memoir you can almost hear Dalgarno screaming, à la David Byrne, 'My God! What have I done?'