Jacqueline Bublitz

00:05 THEME/ID

Let's. Take a look. To take a look inside the book. Take a look...

00:24 S1

Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Keyland, and you're listening to the Vision Australia library radio show. On today's show, we have a bit of a replay of an interview that Conrad Browne did a couple of years ago for Hear This with author Jacqueline Bublitz.  Jacqueline at that stage had released a novel called Before You Knew My Name. This had enormous success. She won the Australian Book Industry Awards for in 2022 for General Fiction Book of the year, and she won two 2022 David Awards for Best Debut Crime and Reader Choice, and she was the only female to be shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Awards in the UK in 2022. 

So the exciting news is that there is a new novel by Jacqueline. It's called Leave The Girls Behind that was released this year in October. Fairly new release and the library will be getting it into the collection, so I thought it was a great time to revisit Conrad talking to Jacqueline Bublitz. Jacqueline Bublitz is the author of Before You Knew My Name, her debut novel that came out earlier this year and has gained critical acclaim and commercial success across the globe. This beautiful and captivating story tells the tale of two women, Ruby and Alice, and their trauma, connection and our cultural obsession with dead girls. But this is not just another novel about a dead girl giving a voice to the voiceless. 

Before You Knew My Name doesn't ask whodunnit. Instead, this powerful, hopeful novel asks, Who was she and what did she leave behind? Here she is speaking with Conrad Browne about this passionate story about how this passionate storyteller became a published author. They explore the themes and characters in the book and the influences and experiences that inspire her, and in turn, made their way into this fantastic story.

02:22 S2

Lovely to have you on Vision Australia Radio, finally! Congratulations on the book, obviously. 

S3

Thank you. 

S2

So in your own words, can you please describe the premise of Before You Knew My Name?

02:34 S3

Yeah, I should be really good at this... considering the book came out in May. However, bear with me while I try not to give any spoilers, but the premise is it's a story of the connection of a young murder victim, Alice... the connection that she forms with Ruby, an Australian woman who finds her body on the banks of the Hudson River in New York City. And it's narrated by Alice herself after her death as we learn more about who she was. This young woman. Why she came to New York, and the events leading up to her murder. And we also through this beyond the grave connection that she forms with Ruby, come close to finding out who killed her. 

So I always say it's... framed as a whodunnit, but I say it's more Who was she? It's a story that very much centres on the victim of this heinous crime that we are, unfortunately, all too familiar with in the news. And by giving her the voice and her telling the story, we really get a different perspective on that kind of crime, which was really important to me.

03:42 S2

And I think that's what really comes through in this book, is it takes something that feels quite familiar and tells it in a totally different way - because, like you said, you've given a voice to what is usually the voiceless. What do you identify as the main themes of this book?

04:00 S3

It's a really good question, and one of the things that readers should sort of expect going in is that it actually plays with a lot of genres and sort of weaves in and out of some, somewhat unexpectedly, I think, you know, it's a story about that focuses on gendered crime and, you know, the devastating impacts on... society of violence against women in particular. This particular story, it also, though, has like a love story in there, and there's a bit of a ghostly element, sort of what happens after we die. So thematically, I'd say it's... many things, but ultimately it's a story... about connection, about how vulnerable we are when we're isolated and how much actually safer we are when we have connections and we form connections with people and have our, in this case, a found family. 

And it's really about giving some kind of or having some kind of hope that the dead are not lost to us. So as much as it is for those looking for sort of a sort of hot off the sort of of press sort of crime novel, it does have those elements and there's a definite through line of kind of political, righteous anger from my perspective, around those kind of crimes. But it is a hopeful story. And thematically, what it really comes down to is this hope that, you know, we are more than our ending.

05:22 S2

One of the, alongside the very strong human characters that we bond with and get to know so well in this beautiful story, is also the city of New York. You really take us there, and it becomes such a huge part of telling this, this really involved tale. So just for everyone listening to just get a bit of context... you are a Kiwi currently living in New Zealand who called Melbourne home for a really, really long time and obviously is still a place that you come back to. And you also have a really strong connection to New York as well. So can you explain how all of those elements of you came into the book?

06:00 S3

Sure. So I always say it was really self-serving decision to set this book in New York. And, to be clear, I didn't have anybody waiting for this book. I didn't have an agent or a publisher. So it was... a potentially a really indulgent thing to do, which was quit my job after getting low or earning my long service leave... and take that, you know, three months pay and go to New York... for a summer, which ended up being five months in total in New York City in 2015. I had a notion that if this book was going to appeal to the kinds of publishers that I, that I wanted, you know, to get it in front of that, it would help to have it in a, you know, a truly international city. 

But mostly I just love New York City. I've loved it since I was five years old. And I saw Annie, the show and the movie, which is set in a New York that actually doesn't... it's like it doesn't even exist. But it's not how you you know, that's not how it works when you're a kid. So always had been obsessed with New York. Never got there until my 20s. But it was, I'd say, one of very few places where the moment that I landed, it lived up to every expectation that I'd ever, ever had. It's always had a love affair with New York, got the opportunity to live there while I really just played around with the story that I had in my head about a young murder victim. 

And New York worked for that sense of anonymity that you would need because Alice, our narrator, is a Jane Doe for a while, and it's actually really hard these days to be a Jane Doe or harder than it used to be because of DNA and and social media and all sorts of other things. So New York started out as a, as something entirely for me, and then very quickly became it became obvious that it was the perfect place to set this book and that I could have lighter moments as well. I could have moments that were about like falling in love with the city, while I was wandering around the streets of New York looking for the right place. Like looking for a place that you could murder someone without getting noticed. 

And going to the morgue and doing all these, like, really grim things and getting myself lost in the backwoods of Central Park... just to see if you actually, you know, could be isolated in New York. And it turns out you can. So New York was the gift that kept on giving. And I absolutely love that. Um, readers are responding to New York as if the city is another character in the book. And then Melbourne. I mean, I lived in Melbourne for 23 years. I consider it home still, although thanks to the pandemic I have not been able to get back. It'll be two years soon and you know, I can't wait. And lots of people obviously in a similar position to me. 

I had the character of Ruby be an Australian for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to honour Melbourne and I wasn't going to set it there. I wanted to at least, you know, have this connection to Melbourne. But also it just became quite easy to not have to think about where Ruby came from. I had to think a lot harder about Alice, who had come from sort of middle America. And, you know, they both landed in New York and there's a lot of creative license I needed to take, whereas I could quite easily default to some of Ruby's experiences back in Melbourne and how she might view going from Melbourne to New York, what the differences and the nuances might be. I think it was one big city to another, but they're obviously very different. So, again, it was something I wanted to do for me, but then it actually became really important to the story.

09:26 S2

So one of the other things our listeners here at Vision Australia Radio, and particularly the ones who listen to Hear This with Frances, really enjoy hearing reader recommendations. So what is a book that you've recently read that you just couldn't put down, and you want all the world to know about it?

09:42 S3

Ah, I love this. I don't get to read a lot at the moment because I'm writing. I've just finished editing my second book and I'm going into like plotting for the third. So a book that I read a little while ago, but it's it stuck with me this whole time is Last One at the Party by an English writer, Bethany Clift. And it is a book about the potentially the last woman alive after a pandemic, not Covid. She wrote this before Covid, but she had the unfortunate timing of it being released pretty much at the same time as Covid was starting to wreak havoc. So I think a lot of people have missed this book for... fear of it being too close to our reality. And let me just say it's not. It is a riot. 

It is the kind of this like Fleabag mixed with Bridget Jones kind of. It's not. Absolutely not what a reader would expect. You do have to have a stomach for reading about pandemics, and I get that people might be a little more than a little bit over it, especially in Melbourne. But this is this is about what you might do if you were the last person alive and everything and nothing was available to you at the same time. Yeah. It's funny, it's dark, it's a little bit gross. It is going to be turned into well, either it's been optioned so either a film or a TV show and I'm like, get on it, because it is one of the I read it in like a day. That would be my number... that would be my number one recommendation. Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift.

11:08 S2

Great. I can't wait to check it out. I'm sure everyone else will feel the same. I guess the most obvious question for us to finish up on is Before You Knew My Name is out now, it's going really great guns. It's available to borrow now in the Vision Australia Library as well. But what's coming next?

11:25 S3

The book just keeps having... it's kind of got a life of its own now, and it keeps reaching new audiences. And that's just so exciting to me because actually, I just thought, you know, it would be like friends and family who have all been phenomenally supportive. But it blows my mind and it gives me such a thrill to to know that people are responding to this book. But what comes next? I've just finished structural edits that would be called on book two, which means that I sent a draft to my publishers and they're like, yes, but yes...  but, we.. because it was done really quickly, one year as opposed to five years because we knew my name. So we are working on that together at the moment. 

And I have also just started plotting book three, which I am incredibly excited about. And I can't tell you anything. And I want to and I need to keep my mouth shut because now I'm like so excited that I just want to tell everyone. But I'm doing an awful lot of grim research, and what I can say with book three is that it feels like the aunty to... Before You Knew My Name. Whereas book two is, which is set in New Zealand, is quite personal and... a little bit more intimate and not quite as ripped from the headlines. And that one feels like maybe like a sister. So there's, I say, all three of them as a trilogy that deal with similar themes, and then who knows after that. But I think that's I've probably got my hands full for for the next little while, I think.

12:48 S2

You do. I'm so excited for you. Can't wait to have you back on to talk about book two and three and all the other ones that keep coming. Thank you so much for being on Hear This.

12:57 S3

Thank you for having me.

12:59 S1

And that was Conrad Brown speaking with Jacqueline Bublitz, the author of Before You Knew My Name, which is available to borrow now from the Vision Australia Library. And you can also purchase it from all good audiobook retailers. And we'll play a sample here of Before You Knew My Name. It's narrated by Penelope Rawlins.

13:18 S4

The first thing I understand about the city I will die in: it beats like a heart. My feet have barely hit the pavement. The bus that delivered me here has only just hissed away from the curb. When I feel the pulse of New York, the hammering. There are people everywhere. Rushing to its rhythm. And I stand open mouthed in the middle of the widest street I've ever seen. Smelling. Tasting the real world for the very first time. Though I am named for a girl who fell down a rabbit hole, I feel in this moment as if I have climbed up out of the darkness and left the distortion of my old life behind me. 

Ruthie, if you were to look back, you'd see all the four way stop signs and the star spangled flags of small town America waving us goodbye. You'd catch a glimpse of untended roads littered with potholes and the windowless convenience stores set down on otherwise empty lots. You'd see rusted ice freezers next to sliding glass doors, and the $9 bottles of liquor on dusty shelves. If you looked hard enough, you might even find my name traced in that filmy coating.

14:37 S1

So Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz. Jacqueline is spelt [spells author's name]. And the book goes for about 11 hours. Thank you Conrad and Jacqueline for that wonderful insight into a really intriguing book. 

Now to a Reader Recommended. And this is from Karen in WA. Thank you Karen. And this is the book Back on Track - How One Man and His Dogs Are Changing the Lives of Rural Kids. This is by Bernie Shakeshaft and James Knight. Karen writes, I think I heard about this man in Australian Story. It's a really fascinating book about his life, which shows us how to assist unfortunate young people who have fallen between the cracks in society. 

It is refreshing to hear how he completes these outcomes in ways that are completely different from what we expect. I feel for those who are misfits, and I applaud Bernie and his attempts and success with so many. Sadly, it is probably a drop in the ocean with the numbers of disadvantaged youngsters and the system that meters out the punishments. Anyway, read the story and decide for yourselves. 

Thank you so much Karen. So I'm going to play a sample of this book. So Back on Track - How One Man and His Dogs Are Changing the Lives of Rural Kids. As a kid, Bernie Shakeshaft's mischievous, mischievous and reckless behaviour led him to become known as the wild one of his devout Catholic family. It isn't surprising that his path led him to the Northern Territory, a place where people often go to either lose themselves or find themselves. Bernie, a searcher for his purpose in life, found himself. He had many jobs, firstly as a ringer on a cattle station owned by the Packer family and later as a dingo trapper for the Parks and Wildlife Service. throughout it all. He drank, he swore. He fought and took chances with his own wellbeing. 

But crucially, he also developed deep connections with the indigenous people. And it was these connections that helped him lay the foundations for what was to come. He worked for youth welfare organisations and all the while he built up his knowledge about helping wayward youths, particularly those from indigenous communities. Years later, Bernie was living in Armidale. He'd been visiting too many kids in prison and going to too many funerals. The usual methods weren't working, so that reckless, reckless, mischievous kid inside him decided he could do better. 

He started a youth program called Backtrack with three aims: to keep them alive, out of jail and chasing their hopes and dreams. For most, this was their last chance, combining life skills, education, job preparedness with rural work. Bernie threw in one other factor, dogs - and it works... with the help of these working dogs, the lost boys and girls find their way back on track. Let's hear a sample of this book Back on Track - How One Man and His Dogs Are Changing the Lives of Rural Kids by Bernie Shakeshaft. It's narrated by Graham Brennan. Oh, and just a bit of a warning: there is the F-word in this small sample of the book.

17:56 S5

The nor'wester blows across the hills. It scuffs up dust, bends yellowing grasses, and sends a shiver through the lustreless leaves of the eucalypts. A few clouds hurry by. Earlier in the morning, some had teased the earth, but the rain that fell wasn't enough to wet a pebble in the middle of a long winter. It has been a much longer drought. A dark grey Holden, Colorado dual cab heads out of town. Its driver wears a black puffer jacket, a blue woollen jumper, blue shirt, blue thermal vest and dusty grease stained blue jeans. His eyes are also blue. So is his language. 

I'll fucking sort it out later. He says to someone over his phone's loudspeaker. His delivery is direct but not brusque. He holds a steaming cup of coffee that has failed to wash away the nicotine gravel in his voice. Even when sitting, he appears lanky. Skinny legs, long arms. Bony fingers. His skin is scarred and blotchy, and his reddened face is framed by wrinkles across his forehead and a grey speckled, gingery beard on his chin. He drives further out of town, occasionally easing his work boot off the accelerator to look at a shed, a business, a paddock, a fence. He knows them all. 

Finally, he heads over a crest on the bitumen and finds what he has been looking for. A small mob of pregnant Angus cows as black as the morning are dawdling along the side of the road. Behind them, a teenage boy sits on an idling motorbike. When the boy notices the Colorado pullover, he stops, starts on the throttle until he reaches the vehicle. The driver winds down a window. Good to see you. Got the warning signs out. Well done.

19:53 S1

And that was a sample of Back on Track - How One Man and His Dogs Are Changing the Lives of Rural Kids by Bernie Shakeshaft. Bernie is [spells author's name]. That book goes for ten hours and 36 minutes, and it's a fairly new release in the library. And it comes under the categories of Animal stories, Autobiography, ... Australian stories, Indigenous non-fiction and Inspirational stories - sounds like a really nice one to read over the holiday break. And thank you Karen for that. 

Now the next two books are topical and they're not all that new, but one is called Jonestown - the Power and Myth of Alan Jones. This is a 2006 biography of radio personality Alan Jones by Chris Masters. How do we rank a man who raises millions for people in need, but whose actions waste millions in support of unworthy mates and poor public policy? How do we define someone who, on his own, finds jobs for the out of work, but who routinely trashes the careers of others? 

These are some of the many paradoxes of Alan Jones. Why is he adored? Why is he reviled? Why does this talk radio host have the power to dine with presidents, lecture prime ministers and premiers and influence government ministers? And how is it that he could not only survive a scandal such as the cash for comment affair. But go on to greater reward. Chris Masters seeks the answers to these questions and in doing so reveals. A complex individual and the potent relationships he has with both struggle. Street and the Big End of town. Jonestown explores the hazardous intersection of populism and politics. It reaches deep into a powerful industry and exposes the myth and the magic of a very powerful man. 

Let's hear a sample of Jonestown - the Power and Myth of Alan Jones by Chris Masters. It's narrated by Francis Greenslade.

22:05 S6

Alan Jones is an angry man. The rage has exploded without warning, like terrorist bombs. There are many moments when he detonates in sudden fury before production staff, hotel receptionists, chauffeurs and airport clerks seething and manic. It is as if competing personalities join forces egging each other on. Jones, the motivator inspires himself to greater fury. The rage is a sometimes caught on tape when an interview displeases, a slow burn erupts into uncontrolled wrath. You are scumbag guttersnipe stuff. What a joke. Just a moment. You are in my office, up and down from his chair, pacing, pouting, glasses on and glasses off, discharging the inner fury. Just shut up for a moment and listen. I'm half minded to grab you and ram you against the wall, you absolute scumbag. 

When friends are caught in the middle or on the sidelines, they stare, mute and aghast, wondering how this anger builds after witnessing withering attacks, some vow to forever keep their distance. When Alan Jones loses members of his loyal audience, it can be for a similar reason. They tire of the harping.

23:19 S1

So that was Jonestown - the Power and Myth of Alan Jones by Chris Masters. Chris is [spells author's name]. And as I mentioned, that book was published originally in 2006. And it goes for 18 hours and 20 minutes - quite a long one there. 

There is also another book by Chris Masters in the collection. Oh, actually, there's a couple. The first one is an interesting one. Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes. Another very topical and probably controversial book. With the Victoria Cross and Medal for gallantry, Ben Roberts-Smith was the most highly decorated Australian soldier, the best of the best. When he returned to civilian life, he became a poster boy for a nation hungry for warrior heroes. He embodied the myth of the classic Anzac, seven foot tall and bulletproof that as his public reputation continued to grow inside the army, rumours were circulating. So that's an interesting one. That's called Flawed Hero by Chris Masters. 

And there is also no Frontline: Australia's Special Forces at War in Afghanistan. And I'm looking at Wikipedia here. Christopher Wayne Masters was born in 1948, in Grafton, New South Wales. He's a multi-Walkley Award-winning and Logie Award-winning Australian journalist and author. Yeah, looking through here. Master's work also played a key role in bringing down Ben Roberts-Smith. 

So the history of Jonestown, the publishing of the book of Jonestown is interesting in itself. On the 29th of June 2006, ABC enterprises decided to cancel publication of Masters' manuscript, stating that the publication was being withdrawn because it would almost certainly result in commercial loss, which would be irresponsible - but this was widely believed to be a veiled reference to the fact that Jones' lawyers had threatened an expensive defamation lawsuit if the book reached publication. Many ABC personalities criticised the board's decision and wrote a petition against it, with signatories including Richard Glover and Phillip Adams. Allen and Unwin ended up taking the book on and releasing it in October 2006, and lengthy excerpts were also published in The Sydney Morning Herald. 

With regard to the Ben Roberts-Smith book, Masters spent more than seven years investigating and reporting on Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith. Flawed Hero was shortlisted for the 2024 Victorian Premier's Prize for Non-fiction. 

And I was going to have a sample of another book called Balcony Over Jerusalem with... the title is Balcony Over Jerusalem, which is a middle East memoir. But I might actually have this in next week because it's... the synopsis is just about John Lyons, Australian journalist who lived in Jerusalem for a while as a middle East correspondent. He still appears to this day on our screens, often on the ABC, talking about what's happening in the Middle East. This book was published in 2017. So again, it's not completely up to date with everything that's happened tragically in the last year. But he does look at, looks at 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and also living there with his wife and young son. So I will have the sample next week. 

A gripping memoir of life in Jerusalem from one of Australia's most experienced Middle East correspondents. Leading Australian journalist John Lyons will take readers on a fascinating personal journey through the wonders and dangers of the Middle East. He's interviewed everyone from Israel's former prime minister, Shimon Peres, to key figures from Hezbollah and Hamas. He's witnessed the brutal Iranian Revolutionary Guard up close, and was one of the last foreign journalists in Iran during the violent crackdown against the Green Revolution. He's confronted Hamas officials about why they fire rockets into Israel and Israeli soldiers, about why they fire tear gas at Palestinian schoolchildren and the effects it has now on both Israelis and Palestinians. So I'll have a sample of that for next week. 

Thank you so much for joining us on Hear This today. I'm Frances Keyland, and thank you for the book recommendations. If you would like to recommend a book... it's absolutely wonderful to get them. So you can always call 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email the library@visionaustralia.org - that's library at Vision Australia dot org. Thank you to Conrad Browne for his interview with Jacqueline Bublitz - and remember that her book Leave the Girls Behind, published this year in October 2024, will be released into the library. I hope you have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.