Cowboy syndrome...

...Alex Miller: 'These characters have been me' – interview

He grew up working class and where he came from, “you couldn’t do anything right. You were channelled into wrongdoing, wrongsaying, wrongfooting.” The “south London mob were only portrayed as crooks and idiots” and, tellingly, “there weren’t books about me”. So Miller started to write them. Sidetracked at first by the theatre – his debut play was snatched up by the Melbourne Theatre Company – Miller’s first novel was not published until he was 50.