WEBVTT - Read This: Robbie Arnott’s Restless Mind 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.120 Hi there. It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.200 another episode of Read This, our Sister podcast. It's hosted 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.400 by the editor of The Monthly, Michael Williams, and features 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.640 conversations with some of the best and most beloved writers 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.120 from Australia and around the world. In this episode, we're 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.439 going to hear from Tasmanian writer Robbie are Not Before 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.360 we do, Michael is here to share a bit about 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:23.040 their conversation. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:27.120 Hi Michael, Hi Ruby. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.240 So Michael. For some of our listeners, Robbie might be 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.400 a bit of a household name at this point. All 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.559 of his books have been very successful, in particular his 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.320 twenty twenty two novel Limber Lost. But for those who 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.239 might be new to his writing, tell me a bit 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:44.000 about his work. 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.400 Look, my father is generally supportive of what I do, 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.760 but he's from Tasmania originally, and the enthusiasm with which 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.159 he fell on the fact that I was talking to 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.920 Robbie Arnott suggested that he didn't give two shits about 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.880 everything else that we do on Read This as successful. 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:02.480 Tasmanian for my father is the pinnacle of anything that matters, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:07.720 and Robbi Arnott is Tasmania's best export since Richard Flanagan. 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.840 He's an incredible writer and he has three novels to 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.760 his name before this new one, and with each of 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.160 them he would be shortlisted for the Mars Franklin, he'd 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.600 win the Age Book of the Year award again and again. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.800 This kind of young writer was celebrated as one to watch, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.920 and his new novel, Dusk is no exception. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.000 And so, Michael, I know that you are the parent 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.119 two teenage boys. I also have a child, a young child, 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.640 so I think we're both familiar with the sleep deprivation 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.800 of the first year of having a newborn. I have 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.639 say during that time I was only really half alive. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.319 But Robbie's latest book had actually came out during that 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.680 time for him, which is pretty incredible. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.360 I mean, you can say the word sickening, Ruby. It's 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.320 fine to say it's sickening that anyone in the fugue 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.680 state of a newborn child who can produce the kind 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:02.280 of soaring literature that Robbie's himself capable of, can frankly 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.400 go and get stuffed. The book is fantastic. It has 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.920 all his hallmark attention to landscape, to the power of 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.440 the natural world to the kind of beauty of the 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.520 wild places in Tasmania. It's a Western, it follows a 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.239 pair of twins. It's an extraordinary novel, and he did 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.919 it all in the weird half state that is a 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:23.520 parent of a. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:29.880 Newborn coming up in just a moment, Robbie Arnott's restless mind. 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.560 Fans of Robbie Arnott will find in Dusk many of 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.200 the qualities he's already made his own. There's plenty of 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.320 beautifully rendered wild places and creatures here. But while it's 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.040 every bity's own voice, there are echoes here of other 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.320 books Patrick Dewitz The Sisters Brothers, for example, or Kevin 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.800 Barries The Heart in Winter. There's hints of Cormack McCarthy, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.000 even Annie Prue. Because beyond its letter, this is a 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.200 book with definite genre beats. There's mythical elements and tropes 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.960 from horror, predator on the loose, terrorizing locals. But most 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.760 of all, this is a book with a debt to Westerns. 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:16.000 Strangers on horseback, hunting for a bounty and trying to 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.760 escape their past. So I wanted to start there to 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.240 ask about Robbie's experience of Westerns. Did he grow up 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.680 loving them, or is it simply a genre that was 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.680 useful for the story he wanted to tell in Dusk. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.600 I do enjoy western I'm not a voracious reader of 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.760 them or watcher of them. It's not a huge part 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.440 of my cultural life, but there's a part about Westerns 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.200 and the directness that really appeals to me. I was 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.320 in on holiday in Stanley and Northwest Tasmania and we're 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:47.800 in a bar and I picked up a book. There 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.920 was a bookshelf and it was called gun Smoke Cure, 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.440 and I remember just thinking that's a title. It's ridiculous, 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:57.680 but that's a title. And it just opens this incredible 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.960 scene of a shootout in a bar and everything goes 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.040 terribly wrong for the protagonists, who you assume it will 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.600 go well for. It all happens in two pages. And 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.760 even though it's not maybe the sort of writing i'd 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.000 like to and emulate, there was a level of directness 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.000 and emotion in there that I thought was really quite 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:17.080 remarkable that gets sneered upon in a lot of genre conversations, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.520 and so I think it just kind of wormed its 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.440 way into my head. I wouldn't want to write a 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.400 book that's blunt or didactic or moralistic. But there's a 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.080 level of directness about motivation and narrative that I think 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.000 can be quite arresting. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.479 Part of what interests me about the relationship between you 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.120 and Westerns, and I think the directness makes perfect sense 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.440 of it. But I heard an interview with you back 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.800 around the time Limberlost came out, and you were saying, 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.280 you're not so interested in plotting, by and large, You're 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.120 more interested in how an event feels than the kind 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.159 of nuts and bolts of what happens in an event. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.720 But there is something about the rhythm and the weight 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.160 of a Western that is plot forward. 0:04:58.839 --> 0:04:59.760 Yeah, very much so. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.040 And I quite like that tension in almost being forced 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.880 to have a plot but not being personally very interested 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.120 in it, and being invested in characters and landscape and 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.640 environment and how all these things are intertwined with each 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.720 other and what effects they're having on each other in 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.000 a way that's propelled along by a plot, and then 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.680 having the plot be directed by the environment and the 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.600 characters rather than them being yanked forward by a particular 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.960 plot device. I thought that would be really, I guess, 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.360 challenging and fun to do so I didn't plot Dusk out. 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.919 I didn't don't plot any of my novels out, And 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.080 that probably sounds a bit crazy to some people, but 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:37.640 maybe normal to others, in. 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.160 Sense you weren't even conscious for that. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:39.880 No. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.080 Yeah, I was kind of in a waking dream the 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.280 whole time. But it's a really simple element in that 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:48.880 if I know exactly what's going to happen, I'll be 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.559 too bored to write it. I've got quite a restless mind, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.760 and I'm quite an impatient person. And if I'm not 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.520 quite excited by the act of creation while I'm writing, 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.279 and the act of figuring things out as I'm going, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.920 and I'll probably get a bit too bored and move 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:02.720 on to something else. 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:09.120 Your books have such faculty with stillness that it seems 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.440 curious to me that you're a restless person. You know 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.279 that again and again. In your books, characters are able 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.680 to approach the world at their own rhythm as a 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:19.960 way of paying respect to that world, even they're not 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.640 rushing around. Your characters are rarely restless. Your characters are 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:25.400 kind of steady. 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:26.440 Yeah. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.919 I think in many ways that's a trait that I 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:30.640 probably want to embody. I probably need to see a 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.240 therapist about. But that is definitely something I feel in 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.760 connection with the natural world. When I go bushwalking or 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.000 snorkeling and you're floating above a reef or you know, 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.680 you reach the peak up a mountain or an outcrop 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.160 and you do achieve that level of stillness is hard 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.680 to achieve elsewhere, and I think that comes through on 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.200 my work. I mean, one of the problems I guess 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.039 in trying to be a writer who is responding to 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.880 their own instincts and being instinctive rather than planned, that 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.640 you're vulnerable too revealing things about yourself you didn't meet 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.120 on doing, which I'm learning more and more of the 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.600 war books I write. But yeah, achieving that s illness 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.360 is something that I really value and find quite transformative, 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:16.800 and I think I feel so passionate about it, and 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:18.480 it means so much to me that it comes out 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.240 in the characters who are generally nothing like me, but 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:22.880 they find that much easier. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.840 Yeah, there's something comforting about that way to live, especially 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.080 if it's something that eludes you on a personal level. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.560 I mean, the Renshaws are a prime example. They never 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.360 get to stop moving for a variety of reasons. You know, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.400 I think we've got a wonderful light about for a 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.480 few moments there stood still for once, not rushing, running, 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.880 not fighting the rough grip of a hard world. That 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.960 kind of perpetual motion for them is in a sign 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.440 of distractedness. It's not a sign for kind of agitation. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:53.920 It's purely survival. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.880 Yeah, it's just a fact of their lives. In order 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:58.680 to eat, in order to find shelter, they need to 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.600 keep moving because not accepted anywhere, and they generally have 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.400 to work twice as hard as anyone else because of 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:08.560 their heritage. I think it's an interesting way to write, 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.320 and hopefully it's an interesting way to read, to have 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.600 a propulsion in I guess in narrative and in characters 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.320 that's not of their own making. That's something that is 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.800 forced upon them, and then you are there with them, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.520 and they keep moving, and they keep doing and changing 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.800 because they have no choice. I think it's a very 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:29.480 old way of telling a story, but I think it's 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.840 an appealing way as opposed to sitting with someone who's 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.680 actively out there trying to make decisions to enlive in 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:36.200 their lives. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.719 So plots a function of character, and then character is 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.680 a function of landscape. Is it reasonable to assume that 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.199 your starting plan for a new novel is almost inevitably 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:49.640 a place. 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.000 Almost always, Yeah, you bang on. 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.840 And I never deliberately set out to write about a 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.120 place years in advance. I'll kind of encounter somewhere in 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.520 time somewhere or feel strongly about somewhere, and just know 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.920 that eventually I'll write about it, and I'll kind of wait. 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.320 This sounds a bit mystical, but I'll kind of wait 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.120 to figure out what that story is, or let my 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:11.400 subconscious figure that out. 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:12.680 So with Dusk. 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.240 I used to camp on a large lake in the 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.760 Tasmanian Highlands called Lake Echo on a friend's farm when 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.680 I was a child, and very magical experiences for me 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.199 up there. And then as an adult, I drove through 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.520 to West Coast to Tasmania quite a few times and 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.240 we traveled around there and did a lot of walking 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.280 around there and up in the highlands, and at various 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.800 moments I would think this is too incredible a place 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.520 to not write about, and not set a novel here. 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.920 I have no idea what it will be, and it 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:41.640 wasn't until I was a few years ago. In the 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.720 South Island of New Zealand, traveling around the Fiords there, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.040 and it's almost like it was a weird melding of 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.079 these two places in my mind. And we had a 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.040 beautiful daughter with us, and she was not sleeping, and 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.200 I was probably spaced out in Milford Sound somewhere fighting 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.880 off sandflies. And then it's almost the Tasmanianhighlands and that 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.880 place merge into my head, and then I remembered gun 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.760 smoke cure, and I just started thinking, that's. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:04.319 What would work. 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.280 Two people driven to keep moving, driven to keep finding themselves, 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.240 driven to find somewhere to live. The book kind of 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.240 then just kicked and clawed its way out of my head. 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.800 So how long has that been part of your personal 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:22.640 mental makeup, that link between the appreciation of a thing, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.000 a place, the love of it, and an impulse that says, 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.199 this place is too special not to write about. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.640 Look, I think since about twenty seventy, when I was 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.720 about twenty five. Before that, I was a very serious, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.440 earnest young man who wanted to be a writer, and 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.560 I didn't think writing about place was very interesting. I 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.400 had this notion that, well, everywhere is basically the same. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.440 People aren't that different wherever you go and people are 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:52.400 what matter in stories. 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:54.719 That's what I was always told. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.080 So I spent a couple of years writing basically terrible, minimalist, 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.240 really Tasmanian Raymond carbon knockoff sort of stuff. And they 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:04.840 were really bad. And I don't say that to be 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.840 you know, so humble. They were genuinely quite terrible. 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.160 Did you show them to people as well? Yeah? 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.400 I submitted them to every magazine you think of. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.840 I have that you know, white male, middle class confidence 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.520 or I just thought someone would like it, you know. 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.520 And I was about to chastise you, I've been too 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.439 hard on yourself, but go on, Yeah no, no, yeah, no, 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.320 I've got pretty thick skin. 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:28.240 And then I was living in Melbourne and having a 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.679 good time and my girlfriend at the time, who's now 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.640 my wife, was in Higbart and we thought she'd move over, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.400 but she graduated from UNI and got this wonderful job 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.280 offer in Hobart and I was working in an advertising 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.800 agency in Melbourne and it was going well, but you know, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.840 I was in love with it, and she said, well, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:47.720 why don't you move back here? It makes more sense. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:48.880 So I thought I was. 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.319 Going to be on the mainland Australia for twenty or 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.920 thirty years before I could, you know, romantically move back 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.760 to Tasmania. And I moved back after two and the 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.880 minute I got back there, I started writing my first novel, Flame, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.240 because I went for a bushwalk and I thought I 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.480 had missed this place so much. I didn't know how 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.000 much it meant to me. And then it almost kind 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.240 of poured out of me. And it was only then 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.560 that I realized that that's what I should be writing about. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.680 Part of what strikes me about the natural world. And 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.079 you capture this so well, the sense of awe and 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.200 wonder and kind of reverence for the natural world. But 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.800 it seems to me that that can often be something 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.640 that's meant with kind of the inarticulate that it's very 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:31.320 hard to corral words, sentences, this kind of structure to 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.480 something that willfully defies it. Do you feel any crisis 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.360 of measuring up when you put your words up against 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:40.560 these places you love so much? 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.079 It is tricky at times. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:48.160 I focus quite hard on detail before emotion, because if 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.439 you jump straight to the emotion a place of oaks, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.800 then you get very wafty, very quickly, and it might 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.480 feel real to you, but it won't quite be real, because. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.679 It's very hard to capture a specific. 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.360 Emotional experience in wage, which is why I do focus 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.440 quite a lot on descriptive writing and then imbuing those 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.320 descriptions with slivers of the sharpest pieces and truest pieces 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.000 of emotion I can, as opposed to making it all 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.160 an emotional thing and then saying also the tree was green. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:18.920 That's how I try and do it, because I think 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:24.360 that best captures these places by looking at them as 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.959 if a photographer would and capturing the truth of them 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.360 and then putting in just the smallest but right amount 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:32.800 of emotion. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.840 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean it 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.079 makes sense to me that you know, Tim Winton's a 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.160 fan of your work, for example, and I think about 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:45.080 what Winton does with inarticulate beauty, and I think there 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:50.400 is something there that when it lands, it's so incredibly resonant. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.160 I'm curious beyond that with the natural world. The kind 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.720 of corollary of that that seems interesting to me is 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:02.280 the role of animals and creatures, because again, he have 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.280 these living things with motivation, with agency. In your stories, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.199 you don't anthropomorphism, but you're also very careful to give 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.320 them a voice. How do you get that balance right? Yeah. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:16.800 The thing I always lean on his animals don't care 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.320 about people, particularly wild animals, and I think that's something 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.000 I find doesn't work very well in fiction is when 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.080 a connection is form between a wilde animal person and 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.440 then it serves as a lesson and a teaching experience 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.720 for the character, and then the animal is there as 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.080 a function to serve humanity, and even if it's not 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.640 deliberately done, that's how it comes out. And I think 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.560 it's best to write again about animals with ultimate truth, 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:41.840 which is they are beautiful and savage and they do 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.800 not care one iota for humans at all, apart from 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.800 what they can get out of them, because animals are surviving, 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:53.520 and focusing on that survival aspect helps them come true 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.960 on the page, I hope, and I think hopefully just 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.240 my own fascination with animals as opposed to people and 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.000 the differences between them and some of the similarities, it 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:05.800 just interests me. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.440 I've learned to lean into your interests as an artist and. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.320 A novelist, because you can't fake passion, no, And like 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.240 readers are clever, and I don't just say that just 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:16.680 to be nice. 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:17.520 Tour and it picks up book. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.800 But generally, like most people these days, are scrolling on 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.600 their phone and half watching TV and half looking at 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.720 their phone and half listening to something, and the act 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.600 of actually picking up a book, especially a novel like 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.240 requires a lot of effort and it's not as easy 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.760 as most entertainment options are these days. Anyone who's going 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.440 to that air first, you have a pretty implicit contract 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.040 with them that they're going to go with you, and 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.360 if they don't, they can put it down. So I 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.360 think trusting that people will realize this might be not 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.800 what they're expecting, but they can feel your passion. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.920 When we're returned, Robbie reveals the simple rules that he 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.360 writes by and explains why he sees himself not just 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.000 as an Australian writer, but as a Tasmanian one. We'll 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:15.400 be right back, and the heart of this book not 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.680 for the first time in your books. A sibling relationship 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.440 is crucial, and Iris and Floyd know each other so 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.520 well that the shorthand they use and the ways in 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:32.000 which bluntness and affection play out are really really beautifully 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:32.880 captured in this book. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.800 I think, yeah, thank you, I found them such a 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.560 fascinating pair to write about, you know, I initially didn't 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:41.760 imagine their relationship. 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:42.680 At the start of the book. 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.600 I imagined it would be a really interesting way to 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.200 follow a novel by essentially having two protagonists but always 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.520 staying close to one and really getting to know one 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.560 of them through by sticking third person close narration to 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.640 them and the other one always being there but almost 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.160 at arm's length, and come to know the meat through 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:02.440 the way they interacted with each. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.280 Other, and then having a brief dive to the other protagonist. 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.680 But as I created the character, so I was going 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.520 the death of love and tension and anger and mistrust 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.000 and devotion to each other, all kind of spoiled out. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.800 He was actually really enjoyable to write and painful at 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.720 other times. I do sometimes wonder what my brother and 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.000 my sister think of I guess most of my books, actually, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:27.639 but I. 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.440 Leave you guessing they're not giving you like robust commentary 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:31.399 or WhatsApp. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.320 Group a little bit. Yeah, they read them. They're always 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.560 eager to read them. They're very proud of me. They're 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:37.280 not really like me. 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.440 They're much more kind of analytical people, so they find 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.359 me a bit bizarre. But you know, they're very happy 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:44.840 that it's working out, and the fact that I write 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:46.679 about siblings is just confusing to them as it is 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:46.919 to me. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:47.800 But here we all are. 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.640 Do you have a consciousness like I am always delighted 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.040 when Richard Flanagan's a great pains to insist is not 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.760 an Australian writer as a Tasmanian writer. Do you feel 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.560 a similar kind of sense of that different being an 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.080 important defining one. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:03.159 For all my scenes? 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.159 I think I do not out of you know, I 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.480 don't have a problem any more of a problem with 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:15.359 mainland Australia than anyone else should. But growing up at 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.119 the Tasmania and I'm sure everyone listening to this it's 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.800 butt of a joke, you know, it's like incest jokes, 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.520 and nobody can read, nobody can write. It's boring, there's 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.280 nothing to do sort of stuff, and it's all generally 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.879 said in good humor. But like you know, you just 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.320 get so used to it, and then we have this 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.560 like Bond villain who sets up a giant art layer 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.520 in Hobart and. 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:38.760 Suddenly Hobart's cool. 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:40.919 Yeah, and everyone wants to come down and visit, and 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.000 everyone wants to buy a condo and hobart and it 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.560 makes us all very wary because we're thinking, like, how 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:49.120 long is this going to last? Until you're all making 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.200 fun of us again? So it does set you apart 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:53.600 from Mainland Australia a little bit. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:54.360 What are the. 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.840 Rules you set for yourself when you write? I mean 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:58.879 you write largely in a realist mode, but then you 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.640 also allow yourself freedom to embrace more things in heaven 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.200 and earth. Do you have an idea of how grounded 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.560 you have to be, what that ratio should be? 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.760 Not necessarily whenever I do anything that veers into magical 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.879 or particularly imaginative. The simple rule I have is like, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:20.439 if it's not real, do I want it to be? 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.280 And can I believe it almost to be? Like? 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:24.240 Do I really want that? 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:25.199 As a reader? 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.520 What I love that to be something? Rather than is 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:34.479 this just quite a sparkling piece of imagination? And am 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.919 I just essentially showing off? So no showing off is 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.520 my biggest rule. No self indulgence, because I don't think 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.520 that does anything for anybody. And I guess my other 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.919 one is just no dead sentences. Obviously, you can't have 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.840 everything be turn around the corner and the man's with 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:51.720 a guns there, but. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.399 Just no dead weight is what I try and avoid. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:02.840 One of the things in Dusk particular is not just 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.560