'A harsh and remarkable work...it will leave you shaken mildly or terribly according to your life experience.' National Times 'David Ireland offers a fiercely brilliant comic portrait of Australia in the grip of a dehumanising labour system.This almost prophetic book has been written to recognise these unknown industrial prisoners.' M/C Reviews 'When I think of my favourite Australian novels, two 1970s works by David Ireland are near the top of the list: The Unknown Industrial Prisoner and The Glass Canoe.' Stephen Romei 'There had been nothing like it in Australian literature before, and the only thing like it since was Ireland's second great proletarian fiction, The Glass Canoe (1976).' Peter Pierce