WEBVTT - Read This: Sean Wilson Pulls Back the Curtain on Dementia 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.960 Hello there, it's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:07.080 another episode of Read This, Schwartz Media's weekly books podcast, 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.959 hosted by editor of the Monthly Michael Williams. It features 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.600 conversations with some of the most talented writers from Australia 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.799 and around the world. In this episode, we're going to 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.279 hear from Melbourne based writer Sean Wilson, who's discussing his 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:26.520 second novel You Must Remember This. As always, I'm joined 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.440 by Michael to tell me a bit more about the episode. Hi, Michael, 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.920 Ruby Jones. Hello, So Michael, I thought we could maybe 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.960 begin our conversation with a discussion about unreliable narrators, because 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.440 that is really key to Sean Wilson's new book, isn't it. 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.680 Yeah, that's absolutely right, Ruby. It is on balance a 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.480 bit harsh to refer to the main character of Sean 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:51.519 Wilson's new book as an unreliable narrator. She doesn't know 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.240 she's unreliable. She's someone whose connection with her own life, 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.600 with her own memories, is fractured, and so her story 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.760 is one of someone who's disconnected. But when we read 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.440 a book, it's a relationship of trust with the voice 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:06.639 that we're hearing from with the story we're being told. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.440 You know, we're conditioned as kids to believe what we're 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.920 being told in the stories. Here's the good, he, here's 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.040 the bad. He, Here's what's going on. And I think 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.520 there's something thrilling as a reader that first moment you 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.240 come up against the thing where there's a world, where 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.280 there's a set of meanings, where there's a reality that 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.200 might be beyond your narrator. They might be lying to you, 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.720 they might not know what's going on. But the great 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.440 literature presents heroes that are complicated, presents characters whose worldview 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.360 isn't the totality of the story that they're telling. And 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.280 I love that. And Sean Wilson's book is a worthy 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.760 inclusion in that pantheon. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.119 Right, And it's dementia that the narrator of you must 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.480 remember this is dealing with. So how does that play 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.880 out in the structure of the book and what is 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.080 the ultimate impact. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:57.480 Yeah, it's such a fascinating kind of creative, artistic storytelling challenge. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.600 And if you think about like great depictions of dementia 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.200 that you've either read or seen, I mean to me, 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:04.760 I think about there was that film a couple of 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.680 years ago with Olivia Coleman and Anthony Hopkins called The 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.120 Father and that was great. There was another one with 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.240 Nonie Hazlehurst called June Again that I encourage people to 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.200 dig out. Both of those did this trick where central 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.400 characters were suddenly recast in the middle of the film, 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.840 They'll be having a conversation and suddenly a different actor 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.600 would be the one setting across from our dementia suffering protagonist. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.480 As a viewer, it immediately took you out of it. 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.920 It immediately gave your sense of what that character was 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.519 going through. Who is this person who says that they're 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.920 my son but has a face I've never seen before. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.600 It's kind of heartbreaking. And Sean Wilson's book does a 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.519 kind of literary version of that, because at the heart 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.760 of it is this really really clever Conceit begins with 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.720 chapter ten and then follows it with chapter seven, then 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.600 chapter eleven, and it jumps around like that. It's a 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:57.200 completely fractured, fragmented narrative. The experience of the dementia sufferer 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.560 so often is one about a nonlineargs where memory and 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.520 reality bang up against each other and they're trying to 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.000 make sense of this kind of fragmented world, and Sean 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.480 Wilson captures that beautifully with his central character, Grace. It's 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.560 a heartbreaking book and one that I thought was really 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.960 pretty fabulous. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.600 Coming up. In just a moment, Sean Wilson pulls back 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:22.799 the curtain on dementia. 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.120 Did I read somewhere that you must remember this had 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.680 one iteration where it was written for performance rather than 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:36.320 for the page. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.320 Yeah, so we're going back over a decade now. I 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.920 originally wrote it for this stage, and it got a 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.000 bit of attention from some theater companies, didn't ultimately make 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.200 it on stage. And not long after I'd written it 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.800 and was talking to theater companies, I saw The Father, 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.240 the play on stage because it was a play before 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.240 the film, and quickly realized that my play was a 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.760 little bit too close to that play and it was 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.000 unlikely I was ever going to get it on main stage, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.960 so put it away. And then at a certain point 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.680 I just thought, you know, let's have a go out 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.360 rewriting it as a novel. And so a lot of 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.200 the elements in the stage version aren't relatable to the novel. 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.880 In the stage version, Grace is on stage the whole time. 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.040 There's no blackout. People are coming in and out from 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.560 President Pass and so there's probably a little bit more 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.960 bleed in the President and Past in the stage version 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.279 in order to get across that message in a different way. 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.200 But some of the elements, some of the scenes remain 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.200 and I've just sort of rewritten them for the page instead. 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.200 It really surprised me, partly because the book is so 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:44.880 accomplished on what I think of as particularly literary terms 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.560 rather than theatrical terms. You know that the fragmentary nature 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:54.440 of Grace's relationship with her reality and her past means 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.839 that you have to have a very defthand with metaphor, 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.880 with how to we express something that she might not 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.200 be able to express, and that relationship between kind of 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.200 knowing and not knowing that seems particularly well suited to 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:09.680 the novel. 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.440 Yeah, and the fact that you can get into Grace's 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.960 head and to a certain extent, show the confusion that 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:17.760 you wouldn't be able to get across on the stage. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:20.719 As you know, the constraints on the stage is just 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.400 dialogue and some scene description and bit of action. You 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:26.400 haven't got anything else, And so you can only tell 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.320 that story through the interactions that are happening on stage, 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.400 so it opens up a lot more possibility to do 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.080 it as a novel. I think it was in some 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.800 senses an easier process writing as a novel compared to 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.600 as a play. But as you said, it gives you 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:48.160 a bit more opportunity to explore the condition itself through metaphor. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.520 So a story that you first tried to tell ten 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.600 years ago, men couldn't they go of and came back 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.680 to in a different form? Was it your grandmother drove 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.600 you to know that you wanted to tell this story. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.200 Yeah, and I felt like I had a responsibility as 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.400 a writer but also as a grandson to try to 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:14.320 understand her experience. So at a certain point in her 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.919 life with dementia, I could tell that she was starting 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.120 to live between president and past. So she would be 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.599 interacting with us in the present, sometimes knowing who he was, 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.480 sometimes not. But she would talk about her parents, who 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.240 are long dead on the other side of the world 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.680 as if they were about to visit. And she'd talk 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.320 about her age care worker in the same moment as 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.280 if that person was her best friend. And so it's 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:41.360 very difficult once a person reaches that point of cognitive decline, 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.599 they can't tell you what it's like, and so I 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.120 suppose it lends itself to a story to exploring through 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.320 fiction what that experience might be like. 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.360 Was she your mom's mum or your dad's dad's mom 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:54.880 A Were you close? 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.479 Yeah? Yeah, really close. She's quite a remarkable person in 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.560 a quiet way. She grew up poor in Manchester, lived 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:08.080 through the Blitz, the family, got on a ship three 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.200 months across to the other side of the world in 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.320 the fifties and sort of raised her family over here 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.000 without any assistance. You know, someone requires a lot of 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.000 fortitude to do something like that, and it's it is 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.480 tragic that at the end of her life she gets 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.080 to a point where she loses all of those memories, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.280 all of the parts that made her her And it's 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.320 very difficult to watch a person go through that. But 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.280 then it's very difficult to see yourself disappearing in their 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.720 eyes at the same time, which I suppose is one 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:41.760 reason why there are so few accounts of dementia in fiction, 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:45.120 because it's a difficult thing, if you have experience with it, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.840 to see yourself, to watch yourself disappear and to see 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:50.200 your love on going through that. 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.760 How like for your family, the management of the dementia 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.560 and the kind of slow motion loss of this important figure. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.640 How did that play out for you guys? Was it 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.280 something you talked about freely? Was it something you know? 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.640 My family definitely, Gallows humor is almost the only way 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.680 of coping with any of that stuff. But I'm curious. 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:18.360 One of the things I love so much in this 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.440 book is Grace's daughter, Liz, and how that plays out. 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.679 And I'm curious for you and your family. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.840 Yeah, I think I just dialed up in Liz some 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.239 of the reactions that we all had. And so Liz 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.719 has some moments of frustration with Grace, and she has 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.920 some moments of compassion and acceptance, and I think the 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.040 intensity of those is just dialed up. It's probably a 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:44.160 little bit less in our experience, but there was very 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.320 much I witnessed in myself and other people. There's moments 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.880 where you want to try and tether them to the present, 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.040 and you almost want to fight against the condition. And 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.040 in those moments, sometimes when you do that, it can 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.720 create some distract for the person because you're trying to 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.679 correct them constantly and they are aware in a vague 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.319 kind of sense in some cases of shame and embarrassment 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.400 about what they're saying and the fact that they're not remembering. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.880 And so I think another path that you can take, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.200 a more compassionate path where you just sort of go 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.120 along with things a lot of the time, where you 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.680 just even though they might be saying something completely wrong, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.320 you just go along with the thread and you continue, 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.800 and you can kind of calmly and slowly try to 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.280 bring some of their memories out, but if it doesn't happen, 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.080 then you just sort of let it go gently. And 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.679 I think that that in the relationship between Liz and 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.000 Grace in the book, when the point that it gets to, 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.800 I think is a point where Liz's started to come 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:49.000 to terms with that. And what you mentioned about Gallow's humor, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.160 I think I tried to get across in the book 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.360 that there is a tragedy going on, but I didn't 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.200 want to make it a tragedy pile on. There are 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.480 moments ofvity as well, just as there are own life. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.480 Sometimes you reach for dark humor and you can bring 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.720 some parts of your own life into the situation and 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.679 try and make it a little bit fun I think 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:12.439 that's important. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.720 Yeah, absolutely. But the other part of that I think, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.880 which I think you do so well, is and I 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.520 should say here, you're very clear in the acknowledgments in 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.360 the book that Grace isn't your grandma. Her experiences have 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.000 her echoes of that and are drawn from that. But 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.840 she's a different human being. But you don't let yourself 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:36.280 lose track of Grace the human being. She's not completely 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:40.720 subsumed by her confusion or by her situation. That part 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.840 of why the book works is that it is the 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.719 story of a woman who has lived a life and 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:52.000 dealt with disappointments and delights and all manner of things. 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.960 Yeah. I wanted her to have a strength, and that 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.600 was important to me in the book because my grandmother 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.080 was strong. Although as you said, she's not the same 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.760 person as Grace in terms of who she was, the 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.040 way she behaved and her experiences and the rest is fictional. 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.679 But she had a strength to her character as well. 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:12.760 And I didn't want Grace to sort of be a 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.400 very passive and meek individual in this book. I wanted 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.040 her to be fighting against the condition in the early 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.160 parts of the book and trying to hold onto her 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.720 identity as much as possible, because I think that that's 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.079 the natural way that she would react in that situation. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.120 What struck me when I was reading this was that 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.679 it's one thing to write about a difficult experience, but 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.200 it's a complete other thing to find a way to 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.680 embody it, to demonstrate genuine empathy for what your character 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.319 is going through. And I think you do that really powerfully, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:47.560 and you must remember this. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.000 I think that's the most one of the most difficult 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.080 things about trying to portray a protagonist with dementia is 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.120 that they are going through cognitive declient. So you have 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.760 to if you're going to have close third person or 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.000 even first person. I'm not quite sure how you would 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:03.920 do first person. I think that would be a little 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:05.960 bit too difficult towards the end of the chronology, but 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:11.160 even close to the person, you've got to show that progression. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:16.640 And as they progress, there's a lot of opportunities for 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.880 you as a reader to become confused, and so I 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.439 think trying to get that balance between readers are a 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.880 little bit confused but a little unsettled and able to 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.560 sit in that in that mode, but then you still 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.240 get across that kind of dislocation that the character has, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.240 so it's a bit of a balancing act. 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.000 That decision to make form agree with subject matter is 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.760 one of the great payoffs of this book and one 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.440 of the one of the really moving things. I'm curious 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.600 about the kind of reader you are. Are you a 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.520 fan of structural play or do you like a good, straight, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:50.520 clear narrative. 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.200 I think I like both, and I think you could 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.959 call it a party trick essentially to create a fragmented 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.520 narrative in this way and to, like you said, make 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:05.440 the form match the nature of the character. I think 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:07.680 in this instance you kind of have to do it 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.720 that way unless you're going to tell it from the 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.040 point of view of another character looking in, like Alice 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:13.920 Monroez the bear came over the mountain, where it's the 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.440 spouse looking in at the person with dementia. So I 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.400 don't think I had much of a choice in this case. 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.000 But I think in terms of my reading, I like 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.239 it both ways. I think what I'm looking for primarily 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.040 when i'm reading something is a good story and good writing, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.880 and if you can tick those boxes for me, I 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.200 don't really mind about the rest of it. And I 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.280 mean in terms of a good story, that you can 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.480 take me on a journey from A to B of 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.800 character growth and relationship change, but then also that there's 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.720 some art involved in the expression, that there's some beauty 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:47.480 on the page. And if I can get both of 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.199 those things, I really don't mind what else you do. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.400 That question about telling a story and the structure of 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.160 a story and our expectations around the convention. So much 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.959 of that is tied up with analogy, with cause and effect, 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:08.600 with actions and consequences, and your decision, or as you 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.440 put it, the kind of inevitable fact that this story 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.200 had to be told in a fractured way kind of 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.199 robs you of that at first glance. Yeah, Instead, it's 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.960 almost akin to a collection of interconnected short stories about 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.240 a life where the threads and the echoes and resonance 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.840 has become clear as you go along, but you don't 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.800 necessarily get that path to satisfaction or joy or redemption. 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:35.520 I think that there is a three line in the story, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.320 and maybe it takes a little while to get to it, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.160 but the three line really is the relationship change throughout 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.160 the story, and you get the flashbacks which contribute to 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.280 the relationship change in the present, and that's really what 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.640 I was trying to go for. I was thinking a 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.720 lot about Philip Larkin's anti natalist poem This Be the 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.200 Verse when I was writing this, and not that I'm 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.400 an anti natalist because my wife and I have a 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.320 three month old son, but the last stanza, there's a 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.040 couple of lines in their man hands on misery to 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.720 man it deepens like a coastal shelf. And I was 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.200 thinking about how if we're not careful, and if our 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.240 parents aren't careful, we can pick up some of the 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.480 traits from them, and they picked up from their parents, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.120 and we can embody those and we can bring those 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.240 into our relationships with our children. And some of those 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.880 traits may not be ideal, and some of the behaviors 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.280 they lead to may not be ideal. And what would 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:32.560 it take to go against the current in changing your behavior? 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.000 And if at the same time, as my main character, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.840 Grace is in this story, she's reliving some of the past. 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:43.680 She's living simultaneously between this past key moments with her 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.840 relationship with her mother and then living in the present 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:49.440 and sort of slipping in and out of those timelines. 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.200 She's sort of experiencing those traits that she's picked up 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.280 with her mother as she's in a sense with the 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.000 ticking clock of dementia in the present, trying to change 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.760 before it's too late, and trying to change your relationship 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.680 with her daughter. So I think that's what I was 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.120 trying to get at. That's the through line through the story. 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.520 Even though the chronology, as you said, is really fragmented 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.920 because she's slipping in and out of president past, there 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.200 is a through line, and that's that change that happens 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:17.880 in her relationship with her daughter. 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.120 Yeah. I take your point about that through line, But 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.240 I think part of what's so fascinating and effective about 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.960 the way you approach it in this book is the 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:34.640 impossibility of either forgiveness or repair when it comes to 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.640 a broken relationship like the one between Grace and her mother. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.800 The ways in which the kind of residual, lifelong traumas 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:47.600 of that unreconcilable after a certain point, and those questions 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.720 about how we do right by the people we love 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.520 and how we make things right when they're broken seem 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:55.960 to me to be almost as important to this book 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:57.640 as questions of memory. 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.960 Yeah, I think that I'm dealing with two things, both 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.680 Grace is changing because of the condition, and so really 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.359 all we are instincts and memories, and if our memories 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.399 are starting to break down, some of those stories that 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.439 we have about ourselves that lead to kind of a 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.600 cohesive self, who we were, who we are, and who 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.800 we hope to be, she's starting to lose those. So 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.840 she's changing through the condition as she's going along. But 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.000 I think she's trying to change at the same time, 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.920 sort of against the current of her change through the dementia, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.360 to change your relationship with her daughter, And she does 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.440 that through the recollections she's having about her past, about 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:40.520 her relationship with her mother. And although the relationship with 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.760 her mother is fixed, that's change that's done. It does 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.679 by reliving them, does inform her relationship in the present. 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.480 When we're returned, Seawan discusses how his relationship with reading 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.560 and writing has changed since becoming a published author. Right back, 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:14.760 even though you must remember, this is the first book 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.440 I've read by Sean Wilson. I first heard his name 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.560 back in twenty twenty two. His debut novel came out. 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.040 It was called Gemini Falls, and several people thrust it 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:25.840 upon me and told me I should read it, and 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.840 I just never got around to it. But looking at 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.359 it now, in light of having read his second book, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.640 it strikes me how much of a departure he's made. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.680 His Debut's a genre novel, for one thing, it's said 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.800 in the Great Depression, and it's probably best understood as 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.760 Australian rural noir, a kind of plot driven murder mystery 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.320 that's revealing a darker story about Australian society's evolution or 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.680 lack thereof. I'm always fascinated by writers that can transition 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.200 between genres, so I wanted to know more. I'm curious 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.800 about the your second book, and your first book is 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.320 a genre novel, like it is a novel that actually 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.920 does very much kind of follow the beats of convention 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:10.840 in order to tell the story it wants to tell. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.640 Did this feel like a completely different set of muscles 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:14.400 you're flexing? 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.639 No, the Gemini Falls felt like more of a departure, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.320 and I was trying to achieve something very specific with that. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.480 This feels more like it's in my wheelhouse. And I 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.159 actually wrote the manuscript for you must remember this before 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.320 Gemini Falls, all right, And so in a sense, this 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.280 is my first book, although that's gone through some editing 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:38.760 and rewriting. Gemini Falls. I wanted to tell a particular 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:44.480 story about financial crisis and housing displacement in an unregulated 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.359 market economy and what that does to people in the 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.439 community and who sort of helps and who raises a fist, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.320 And because I think there are some parallels between now 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.320 and the Great Depression in that sense, I said, it 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.280 is a historical novel in the Great Depression. And after 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.359 that I decided, how how am I going to tell 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:08.320 this story keep people engaged in this topic. I decided 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.480 to have a crime in order to turn the heat 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.000 up on the community and explore those themes, And so 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.600 just naturally it sort of went into a genre that 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:21.560 I'd had no experience with. 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.399 So when you say it didn't come naturally or you 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.520 didn't know that genre, did you find yourself reading a 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.359 lot of historical crime fiction in order to feel like 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.920 you could fit the conventions, or did you kind of 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:38.840 avoid it and happily go in naive. 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.160 I probably should have read more. I read a little bit, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.720 but I think my guiding light for that story was 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:48.920 to kill a mockingbird, in the sense that to kill 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.600 a Mockingbird could be a crime novel or a courtroom 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.640 drama if you were reductive in that sense, But really 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.520 it's about racism in the South and the depression States 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.920 rights gender roles. So I felt like I had enough 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:09.280 with that story to guide me, and then from then 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.080 on it was really just about I think what's important 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.280 in stories, and what we always go back to is 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.720 the relationship change that happens in the novel. So although 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.160 I wanted to explore those themes and that was important 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.199 to me, it is not enough just to have a 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.480 story about financial crisis and housing displacement and all of 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.760 those issues that I wanted to explore. You've got to 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.840 have the relationships are changing, and so the main character 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.720 and the way he relates with his father and his sister, 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.639 those are really the important parts of the story, and 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:43.760 that's what keeps us coming back to stories. 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:50.080 So what did writing in a mode that was if 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.119 you'll forgive this way of putting it a little bit 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.320 reverse engineered, what did that teach you about the writing 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:59.600