Mark "Chopper" Read
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Mark fuckin' Brandon "Chopper" Read (17 November 1954 - 9 October 2013) is a fuckin' Australian author and writer. His works are mainly about the criminal activity that takes place in Australia, such as; stealing a Mars Bar from 7/11, a can of Coke from a Milk Bar, or shanking a bloke at the train station that looked at you funny. He also dabbles in science-fiction.
Early life[edit]
Read's first novel, simply titled Early Life, was the first of his Underbelly book series. Written in the first person, the protagonist is born to a former army and World War II veteran father, and a mother who was a devout Seventh-day Adventist. The boy is then placed in a children's home for the first five years of his life. He grew up playing around the streets of Collingwood and Fitzroy. A large majority of the book shows the boy being bullied at school and that he had lost several hundred fights — which is why he did not go on to become a boxer. The novel ends at age 14, where the boy was made a ward of the state. In the epilogue, the fictional character was placed in several mental institutions, and even underwent electroshock therapy.
Plots of his other works[edit]
His second novel is about an accomplished street fighter who is also the leader of the Surrey Road gang, in which the character made his criminal career by robbing drug dealers. He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims to induce them to produce enough money.
Read's third novel follows a man who has spent only 13 months outside prison between the ages of 20 and 38 — having been convicted of crimes including armed robbery, firearm offences, assault, arson, impersonating a police officer and kidnapping. In the late 1970s at Pentridge Prison, the man started a prison war. The second part of the novel follows the man and his gang, dubbed "The Overcoat Gang" (because they wore long coats all year round to conceal their weapons) were involved in several hundred acts of violence against a larger opposing gang called "The Tracksuit Gang" because they all wore tracksuits.
A short story was also written, set between books 3 and 4. It follows the same character from the previous "mainline" novels, in which he was stabbed by members of his own gang — in a sneak attack when they felt that his plan to cripple every other inmate in the entire division and win the gang war in one fell swoop was going too far.
In Choppers' fifth and final novel, a rival gang member busts open a toilet cubicle door with a number of associates, and started a serious assault on the main charcter, who made then his escape, but not before smearing his faeces into the gang leaders' face.
The accusations[edit]
As Read released more novels about criminals and crime, his readers, aswell as VICPOL, started to believe that Read was actually writing about himself. On many occasions, Read played along with the fan theory but before he could confirm or deny these rumours in person, he died. However, in 2016, an unfinished draft of a sixth novel from the Aussie author was uncovered. It invovled the story of killing Sidney Collins, which to Police confirmed that the real author, Mark "Chopper" Read, was the same Mark "Chopper" Read written about in the novels. It also explains why in the 2000 film, Eric Bana looked exactly like the real Chopper.
Film[edit]
In 2000, a film adaptation of Marks' novels was made, titled Chopper. It starred Eric Bana as Chopper. The film combines all of the novels into one big plot.
Where's 'is ears?[edit]
In 1978, Chopper cut off his own ears to give himself a conversation starter. Thirty years later, it was revealed that he actually cut off his ears so that he didn't have to hear his fuckin' wife bitch and moan about paying taxes, and other stuff law-abiding citizens do.
