00:05 UU (Program theme)
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 I'm bringing you the Vision Australia library show. On today's show, we replay an interview that I think was about 2018 with Australian author Jane Rawson. And we have some samples of some books, so I do hope you enjoy the show.
Australian author Jane Rawson was interviewed a few years ago. We start off talking about her book with the wonderful title A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, which isn't available in the library... and then we go on to talk about her, a novel that is in the library, which is The Wreck. A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists was awarded the Most Underrated Novel of the Year, and Jane talks about getting that recognition was a wonderful thing.
01:19 S2
It's strange to call it major recognition, I guess the Most Underrated Book award, but it was. It felt huge to me. It was the first time anyone had really paid attention to my writing, I guess, and it was. The particularly great thing about it was that the Sydney Morning Herald took an interest in the award that year. So they did a half page story on the award and my book, and that brought me heaps of attention that I think would not have normally happened for a book like that. So it was... yeah, it was fantastic.
01:46 S1
Is it some form of vindication that in five years that was written or published in 2013, and now here you are longlisted on the Miles Franklin Award? Is that an even bigger thrill or...?
01:59 S2
Yeah, it it's kind of a different, bigger thrill, I guess the Miles Franklin feels like. I suppose I've always written fairly strange books... and always felt like there wasn't much chance for me to be embraced by mainstream literary society. So having my book longlisted for the Miles Franklin felt like a real sort of stamp of approval from the mainstream, which was nice. It was kind of nice, and my mum was excited too. She was like, Oh, you're on a list with Peter Carey. That's amazing. And it was amazing. That is amazing, yeah.
02:34 S1
Yes. When I've read your books, I haven't got the feeling that you write with an award in mind or that you write for, oh, you know, for the wider audience, you write for yourself. Would that be true or...?
02:45 S2
I definitely write for myself. I have an idea in my head that is something I want to explore, and the process of writing the book is really just about investigating that idea from all kinds of angles, and figuring out a way to explain it as much to myself as to anyone else. Though I do, particularly with From the Wreck, I did a lot of redrafting to make it into something that would be comprehensible to somebody else if they wanted to read it, but I didn't really think anyone would want to read it. It was too strange.
03:17 S1
Oh, really? Even for... you. You felt it was too strange.
03:20 S2
I did. I was like, you know, I'd explain it to people. And there were a couple of people who are like, Yeah, that sounds good. But most people are like, I don't see how that's going to work. So yeah.
03:32 S1
From the Wreck... can you tell us about what gave you the idea?
03:37 S2
Yeah... well, it started out as a sort of regular historical fiction novel based on my own family history. My great-great-grandfather was shipwrecked in the Admella in 1859, off the coast of South Australia, and stuck on the wreck for eight days and nights. No rescuers could get to them. And over the course of that time, about 100 people died on the wreck, and he was one of the very few who were rescued at the end. And it wasn't until after the rescue that he had his first child. So it was, you know, due to him surviving that terrible experience that I exist. So, wow, I was... I wanted to do, I guess, do a little something to put him more into history, I guess, to to pay some sort of respect to that effort that he had made that let me be alive.
So I started writing it as a historical fiction novel and discovered that I was not very good at that. But it kind of, just writing a story of the real, normal world didn't interest me enough to do a very good job, I think. And so I added an alien to the story. And she's a shapeshifting alien who is seeking refuge after her own planet has been destroyed, and she ends up in colonial South Australia trying to find somewhere that she can fit in, somewhere where she can be loved for herself, I guess.
04:56 S1
Yeah. And like all good novels that have a, I guess, a monster, for want of a better word, an alien or a monster... the, it's the common feelings that we that you've expressed that we, that she shares with humanity. I mean, she's very different, but at the same time, there's a commonality there of of feeling and emotion and attachment and loss and grieving. Yeah. Which I love.
05:23 S2
She's lost everything. She's lost her home. She's lost everybody else that she knew. She's got nothing. And she's come to this place where whenever she reveals her true self, people see her as a horrific creature. Yeah. So, you know, she would like to be herself, but she has to keep hiding in other forms in order to get by.
05:44 S1
Yes. And if someone was listening to this, they may think, Oh, it sounds like a horror novel, but it is... it's not at all, that, it's a gentle novel. It's got its dark undercurrents, starting with the sea and everything. It's.. yeah...
05:57 S2
Yeah, I really wanted to write something about whether there are ways that we can accept people and things that are very different to us, because it's it's hard for all of us often when we're faced with people or other species who are very different to us, to reach out and be sympathetic to their plight and to accept them into our lives and not to be afraid of them.
06:18 S1
Mm. With the Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists as well. I was talking to it with a colleague at work, and I was saying, Oh, it's dystopian, and it's set in, you know, Melbourne and, you know, which I'm familiar with and... you know, everything's horrible and polluted, people, global warming. There's people eating pigeons in Swanston Street, buying pigeons to eat, you know. And she said, I said, Oh, so who are the bad guys? And we came to the conclusion, Well, you know, I said, there are no bad guys. In fact, everybody's in the same boat. And that, again, is another thing I like. You know, you don't pit people against each other... you explore the commonalities, yeah.
06:58 S2
I think that's a really interesting point... yeah, I guess most traditional dystopian novels do have a dark, overbearing, totalitarian force in them somewhere, or someone who has ruined things, and this is the result of it. But I guess... there are... some slight villains who are offstage. I mean, you know, there's... the wealthy people who are still living nice lives, but we never really see them.
07:24 S1
No, not... so far offstage.
07:25 S2
But it's not the main character's concern. Their concern is this is the world that we live in. Yes. How do we live our lives? How do we get along? No.
07:34 S1
I was looking a little bit at... your Twitter feed and, oh, yes.
07:39 S2
I saw that. I saw that I'd got a Like from you there.
07:43 S1
And I saw a quote that you so strongly agreed with. "I can easily see..." and this is from Ling Ma, "I can easily see the logistics of my character's daily lives, which transit routes they take and their incline, what they're inclined to eat for dinner. The rest of it's a mystery to me." So is that true about the characters that you write?
08:02 S2
I've started writing a new novel, and I was feeling that very strongly at the time that I saw that... I was, I always seem to, I write without planning. Largely. I have some sort of vague ideas about some characters and some settings and a couple of things I might like to happen, but I don't ever know the ending or how anyone's going to get anywhere or anything like that. So a lot of my first draft is people leading their daily lives, and there's a lot of it still in A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, a lot of it is Katie trying to find something to eat and scraping together the money for some soap. Or how will she wash this? Yeah, everyday logistics. I seem to quite enjoy writing, or it pains me to leave it out. I'm like, Well, how did she get there? How did she afford that?
And I don't know if it's because my most of the writing I have done in my life has been professional, practical writing of some sort. And rather than more flowery literary creative writing. So yeah, I think I'm inclined to the the concrete facts of the situation I need. I feel a need to have them in there, and the rest is frequently a mystery until I've got to a point where a character is like, well, I need to buy some soap. And then I'm like, Well, she's going to have to do something to get some money to get that soap, isn't she? There's a plot point. Yeah.
09:19 S1
Yeah. Katie's a wonderful character, and so are all of the characters in that novel are fantastic. And even, you know, the traditional enemies, the soldiers, they're kind of benign, the UN soldiers that are hanging around, and even very nice people.
09:32 S2
So the people in trouble as well, you know, they've ended up there because their lives elsewhere didn't work out or they've been put into terrible situations in other disaster affected countries and they've suffered from that. So, yeah.
09:45 S1
So behind all of this, is there is this all-informed and... driven by your passion about climate change as well?
09:56 S2
Yeah, climate change... and I guess a host of environmental issues, are the things that really interest me. I'm very interested in animals, interested in what we do to animals... interested in extinctions and our sort of disregard for the rest of the non-human world. I suppose our complete obliviousness to what's going on in it is very interesting to me. Climate change is extremely interesting to me. Sometimes I just have to turn away from it, though, and think about other things because it's such a mess, particularly in this country. And issues of social justice, I guess, have been something that has inspired me since I was very young. So yeah, it comes out, that sort of stuff does come out a lot in my writing.
10:39 S1
Well, I've got a question here. Look, since writing these questions, I sort of realised that you come from a family of writers. So did you come from a family of readers?
10:49 S2
Yes, definitely. My mum and my dad are both keen readers, my mum of historical fiction, and she loves Georgette Heyer.
10:57 S1
Oh, yeah, she loves her. Isn't that great? Because she was such a great writer in her research. Yeah.
11:03 S2
Yes. Yeah. And my dad loved sci-fi. All kinds of sci-fi. So perhaps it's appropriate that I've written a historical fiction sci-fi book. But yes, books. Books everywhere in our house. And I had free access to all of them. I probably read things I should never have read at a very young age.
11:20 S1
What books did you love as a child?
11:23 S2
I liked sort of the the two classic things that kids like books about animals. I really liked White Fang in particular. And also fantastical books. I loved C.S. Lewis's books, particularly The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Narnia books... like The Magician's Nephew and Prince Caspian. I really love those. And also his sci-fi Mars books I liked a lot. But I also loved ancient Rome. I really liked Eagle of the Ninth, and later I read I, Claudius as well. And yeah, I loved, you know, ancient Rome. I don't know why.
12:00 S1
Wow. There's a whole series of... well, no, I would... understand that there's a whole series of books by Simon Scarrow... and he's written like a detective fiction, all set in ancient Rome... the Falco series. And people love them. You know, people ring up and ask for them, and we actually reviewed them on last week's show. So, yeah. Simon Scarrow, there's an author. Ancient Rome.
12:22 S2
Check that out. Yeah. Because, yeah, that's my kind of comfort reading as I go back to I, Claudius, over and over again. Oh, be good to have something different.
12:31 S1
Yeah. Have you... ever had a crush on a book character?
12:36 S2
I had to think about this. And I think the biggest crush I had on a book character was on five of the rabbits in Watership Down.
12:45 S1
Oh my gosh. Oh, yes.
12:47 S2
Oh, so wise, so vulnerable. So brave. Even though he was so afraid.
12:52 S1
Yes. Oh, look, in my mind I can already see one of my one of our library members, Lisa, screaming. Screaming out, yes, to that, because it's one of her favourite books ever.
13:05 S2
I just reread it as a grown up and it's it really stands up. I mean, you know, it's got a bit of dodgy politics and stuff in it, but as a novel, it's great. Even as an adult, I thought it was really good. Mm.
13:16 S1
Great. So where was your, have you ever wanted to be a character in a book that you've read?
13:22 S2
If I was going to be a character in a book that I'd read, I would like to be... I can't decide between John Ames, the Preacher in Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, who is such an earnest, kind person who just really wants to be good in the world, or Mrs. Coulter in the Northern Lights series by Philip Pullman, who's just completely evil but so charming and great. So one of those, I think. Yeah.
13:47 S1
Oh, good. So where is your ideal place to be when you're writing?
13:52 S2
I like to write in bed whenever I can. It's sort of, I feel like it insulates me from the real world. If I can stay in bed and write in my dreamy imagination, self gets to be more alive, I think. Also, it's comfortable and warm.
14:07 S1
Yeah. That's lovely. That sounds lovely. Other people, I think have said, you know, Oh, on an island somewhere, you know, by the, on the sand. But that sounds fantastic, in bed. Yeah. Was there a book you read as a teenager or a young adult, that was like a rite of passage for you or an awakening?
14:26 S2
Yeah, there were quite a few similar sort of books that I read as a young adult. I feel like there was a sort of upswelling when I was young of books that were fantastical, but not fantasy books. things like The Passion by Jeanette Winterson and Unbearable Lightness of Being - books that were, you know, philosophical, I guess, while still being an easy, charming read. I was really into those kinds of books when I was like 20, 21. But also, I think The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins really completely changed how I saw the world. Wow.
15:01 S1
How old were you when you read that?
15:04 S2
Probably 19 or 20, I think. Yeah.
15:06 S1
And how did it change your view of the world?
15:09 S2
The sort of realisation that we are, you know, hosts for our genetic material that make us want to do a lot of things to survive. And that's when you think about, you know, What is my purpose in life? Why am I on this planet? The answer is because my genetic material has survived this long and would like to keep surviving, and it kind of takes away a whole area of worry for you. Like, well, that's that question answered. Now I can get on with my life.
15:35 S1
Oh that's great. Yeah, yeah... and was there or is there a book in your adult life that has remained in your head and heart on a deep level?
15:45 S2
I think Gilead that I discussed before. That's something I turn to quite often, along with Middlemarch, when I'm thinking about, you know, coming back to that question of What? What should I be like? What should a person be like on earth?
15:59 S1
Yeah, but...
15:59 S2
Also Infinite Jest, which I think is the book that kind of freed me up to be a writer. That made me think, you can just do anything. Just do whatever you want. Give it a go. It'll be great. Have a... try.
16:12 S1
Gee, you've got a lot of wonderful books mentioned, most of which we have in the library in audio or in Braille or both, which is great. Excellent. What next for you? I mean, obviously the this is a big year. And you'll be at the Melbourne Writers Festival and then, you know, the... shortlist hopefully of the of the Miles Franklin.
16:30 S2
Oh, the shortlist has already come out. I didn't make the cut. But, you know, I'm not really surprised considering I wrote a sci-fi book, it's amazing it got on the long list at all. So yeah.
16:39 S1
Yes, I was discussing that with a friend of mine who... does some writing, and she was saying that the formula for a successful Australian novel is these days is pretty pat. And this really does break, your writing does break all those forms, do you think? Do you think your books... would sell or be marketed and more readily accepted in in Britain or America or in Europe?
17:08 S2
Well, it's oming out with Picador in the UK... next April to June. I'm not sure exactly when. So I am really interested to see because I do feel like, yeah, that Australia has sort of stricter ideas about categorising books that are starting to break down a little bit now, I think. But yeah, it feels like the UK is much more open to a book just being, you know, a good book. Yeah. So we'll see. I'm really interested to find out. Definitely.
17:38 S1
Yeah.
17:39 S2
And so that's the one big thing that's in my future. That and writing a new novel, I guess.
17:44 S1
Oh, fantastic. I look, I hesitate to ask because a lot of people don't like talking about works in progress, but... is it the same? You're still writing for yourself about, you know, obviously themes that you're passionate about.
17:58 S2
And I'm feeling a little more observed than I have previously when writing because From The Wreck has had some success and I've had some attention. So I'm a little more aware that people might give this book a go and if and when it comes out. But yes, it's still, I'm still writing something that I hope will be strange and a little bit confusing and unsettling. And... as we were talking about dystopias, I think this is probably going to be a dystopia that does have bad guys in it this time, but a whole lot of other weird stuff as well.
18:27 S1
Thank you so much, Jane, for coming on the show. Oh yes, and best of luck with all of your endeavors. I'm really amazed at the books. They surprised me and, oh good. Yes. And and and the kindness that's in them. You know, some some novels you can be really... oh, I don't know, exhausted by cruelty. Yeah. Yeah. And the the wonderful compassion in these books is just terrific. So thank you.
18:55 S2
Thanks very much.
18:57 S1
You're welcome. And best of luck. Thank you Jane, thanks a lot.
That was an interview done with Jane Rawson back in 2018, and From the Wreck received the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2018, and we have a sample of it here. From the Wreck tells the remarkable story of George Hills, who survived the sinking of the steamship Admella off the South Australian coast in 1814. Haunted by his memories and the disappearance of a fellow survivor. George's fractured life is intertwined with that of a woman from another dimension seeking refuge on Earth. This is a novel imbued with beauty and feeling, filled both with existential loneliness and a deep awareness that all life is interdependent. Let's hear a sample of From the Wreck by Jane Rawson. It's narrated by Roslyn de Winter.
19:53 S4
He could hear the horses nickering and wondered why it was that everything felt a little off. I'll leave this cleaning just one moment, he thought, and go below. I'll just make sure someone is attending to them and then I'll return to the galley. Jupiter. He breathed the name out because there was no one there, only the six horses. And George himself. Jupiter. But no horse turned his head to look. He didn't know which among them was the famous racer. They were shuffling, still something anxious about them. He told himself, you know nothing of horses. What do you mean? Something anxious? How would you know? But he felt his own sweat prick a little.
He sat himself on a flour barrel and watched the horses nudge one another, the flick of their tails. He may have closed his eyes. He did not think he had. But when he opened them there was another. A woman. She was running her finger around the rim of the horse's mouth, and it stood death still. Eyelids peeled back and eyes locked on her shadowed face. She leaned forward out of the darkness and licked the foam from the horse's quivering muzzle, and George could hear the creature breathe a strange whimper deep in its chest. That did not sound like comfort. Harvesting was the word that forced itself to George's mind.
21:50 S1
And that was From the Wreck. And Jane is spelt [spells author's name].
The next novel to sample is a novel by another Australian author, Julie Jansen, and her novel Benevolence. This is published in 2022 and for perhaps the first time in novel form, benevolence presents an important era in Australia's history from an Aboriginal perspective, told through the fictional characterisation of Dharug woman Marie-Jeanne. Benevolence is a compelling story of first contact. Born around 1813. Marie-Jeanne is among the earliest direct generations to experience the impact of British colonisation, a time of cataclysmic change and violence, but also a remarkable survival and resistance at an early age.
Marie-Jeanne is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father, fleeing the school in pursuit of love. She embarks on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place to make her home, spanning the years 1816 to 1835. Benevolence is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Dharug people in Parramatta and Sydney. Let's hear a sample of Benevolence by Julie Janson. It's narrated by Richard Bligh.
23:11 S5
Marie-Jeanne is rattling carts full of Wybalenna whitefella and the sound of pots against iron wheels. She looks back and sees the deep wheel marks like huge snake tracks and hurries after her father, Baranginji. He gives her a Bible, a coat of red wool, so he loves her. He turns away and she watches the boy take her place. She can see the love between man and boy. She doesn't understand what is about to happen, but she knows she must try to have courage. There is loud talk around her. She is limp with the heat and imagines herself floating in a deep, cool creek. But her father is speaking to her and what he is saying brings her back.
He tells her he met some men in Parramatta town who offered to teach Aboriginal children to read and write. She is to be an important part of helping their people and she must learn their language and their ways. She must be brave and remember that he loves her and one day he will come back for her. He reminds her that the sky god Baiame and his son Daramulum will watch over and protect her. She panics and grips his hand. Alarm rises and her aunt mothers look away. Her father lifts her up and holds his head with her body pressed against his black curls. She longs for food, chews wattle gum to ease her thirst. The red coat is dropped along the track. They walk for many days before they arrive at Parramatta, where carriages and bullock wagons churn mud and the horses are terrifyingly big. She quivers at the sharp hooves and the whinnying like the sound of monsters.
24:56 S1
And that was Benevolence by Julie Janson. Julie is spelt [spells name]. Julie Janson is a woman of the Dharug Aboriginal nation. Her career as a playwright began when she wrote and directed plays in remote Australian Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. She is... now a novelist and award winning poet.
And staying with Australian fiction, we have Preservation by Jock Serong. On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of Sydney in 1797, fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors. Distressed and terribly injured, they have walked hundreds of miles across a landscape whose features and inhabitants they have no way of comprehending. They have lost 14 companions along the way, and their accounts of their ordeal are evasive. It is Lieutenant Joshua Grayling's task to investigate the story, and he comes to realise that those 14 deaths were contrived by one calculating mind, and as the full horror of the men's journey emerges, he begins to wonder whether the ruthless killer poses a danger to his own family. This was published in 2018. Let's hear a sample of Preservation by Jock Serong. And I'm sorry, I'm not sure who the narrator is.
26:16 S6
The governor's quill stopped in its flow as if it had struck some unseen obstacle. Tell me again, Lieutenant. Carefully the nib hovered above the page, the hand suspended there. Steady and waiting. A small fishing boat, Excellency. It had been gone three days, working offshore from a bay to the south of here, about 20 miles distant. Guatemala, sir. Native word. The quill waited. Governor Hunter's powdered hair caught the sun through the window behind him, the serene beauty of Sydney in autumn laying its soft light on the bookshelves and the chairs.
It was one of the deckhands that saw them, a master Drummond. Early morning on his watch. Three men. He thought they were natives at first, as there wasn't much left of their clothing, and one's, uh, one's dark. They were making their way up the beach from south to north. The inlet there forms a of pronounced indentation in the coast, but the beach is very short. I'm told they were terribly distressed.
27:24 S1
And that was a sample of Preservation by Jock Serong. Jock is spelt [spells name].
Thank you for joining us on here this today. Thank you to Jane Rawson for that interview from a few years ago. If you would like to join the library, if you would like to find out what other books we have in this wonderful collection of over 40,000 audio titles, there's also magazines and newspapers. Give the library a call on 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email the library@visionaustralia.org - that's library at Vision Australia dot org. Have a lovely week and we'll be back next week with more Hear This.
