Ice Age

Shocking. Honest. Engrossing.

Journalist Luke Williams had moved into a house with an old friend and meth dealer in outer-suburban Melbourne researching addiction to crystal methamphetamine when he accidentally became addicted to it himself. Over the next three months, he descended into psychosis.

He believed his parents were trying to poison him, that a pedophile ring was being run from the local café and thought he was bound to become a rap star. He became transfixed with violent fantasy and ended up living on the streets. After that, he moved into Australia’s then most notorious boarding house The Gatwick.

Ice Age tells the story of Luke’s fall as well as the fate of two other addicts – Smithy and Beck (both parents of young children) while simultaneously explaining how and why crystal meth has become a problem in Australia and all over the western world.



Shortlisted for the Nib Waverley Prize
Longlisted Walkley Book Prize
Longlisted for a CWA Dagger Award
Highly Commended Australian Drug Foundation Media Awards

‘[An] unblinking account … shot through with little slivers of acid humour.’ (Andrew Anthony, The Observer)

‘Williams is a talented writer…  Ice Age is a vivid, detailed and balanced account of methamphetamine use [and] a remarkable, original and compelling journey.  To quote the king of gonzo journalism, Hunter S.  Thompson: buy the ticket, take the ride.’ (Andrew McMillen, The Weekend Australian).

‘The intensity of Williams's focus on Australia's meth problem is ultimately not a flaw but a virtue - it's what makes The Ice Age vividly memorable…In documenting his addiction, Williams thrusts the book into the realm of celebrated drug memoirs, from Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater, to William Burroughs’ novelized Junky and Hunter S Thompson’s part-autobiographical, part-fictional Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.’ (Chris Harvey, The Telegraph)

‘The Ice Age finds a steady rhythm between the vivid, surreal, violent and sorrowful memories of what Williams experiences while addicted, and thoroughly researched sections on history, law, policing and psychology that qualify the book as an excellent reference work … At his worst, Williams could lie to himself and everyone else with a flair that may have been natural or drug-inspired, or a mixture of both.  In this book, he reaches towards the truth.  As both an ex-addict and a journalist, he appears to have found it.’ (Sean Bell, Scotland Herald)