WEBVTT - Read This: Melanie Cheng, Superstitious Doctor 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.200 Hello again. It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:07.320 another episode of Read This Our Sister podcast, hosted by 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:11.120 editor of The Monthly and bookworm Michael Williams. It features 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.200 conversations with some of the best and most fun loved 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.560 writers from Australia and around the world. In this episode, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.000 we're going to hear from author Melanie Chang. Before we do, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:23.759 Michael is here to share a bit about their conversation. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.120 Hello Michael, Hi Ruby. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:32.080 So Michael, I actually remember when you read Melchang's new 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.720 not Fall the Borrow, because you came into the office 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:36.960 the very next day and you were very exciting. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.599 It's true, is it one of those funny things that 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.040 I am very lucky. Don't get me wrong. I am 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.880 lucky to get sent so many books from so many 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.320 brilliant publishers. But this kind of fatigue comes in, Like 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.560 they arrive and they sit on your desk, on your table, 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.920 and you think, oh, oh God, I've got to get 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:55.960 to that soon. But I've got these five other things 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.760 that are kind of competing for my attention beforehand, and 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.600 I was thrilled to see in your book from Melanie Ching. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.880 She had two books already a short story collection called 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.959 Australia Day, and her first novel, which was called Room 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.560 for a Stranger. Like I am a fan. I was 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.040 pleased that the book had arrived, but I just had 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:13.679 too much on my plate. I was like, I'm going 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:14.880 to get to it when I get to it. The 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.560 new book was called The Burrow, had a nice picture 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.240 of a bunny rabbit on the front, and I was like, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.720 all right, all in good time, The Burrow. I'll get 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:23.440 to you when I get to you. But I had 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.000 like five minutes to kill while I was waiting for 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.120 a wash to finish and my washing machine, so I 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:30.560 just picked it up and perched on the edge of 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.480 my couch and thought, I'm just going to have a 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.759 look at the first page and have a skin And 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.680 then it was like I went into this fugue state. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.280 Suddenly I looked up and it was dark outside, and 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.200 my washing was sitting in the machine untouched for hours 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.120 on end because I was so transfixed by what I 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.400 found on the page. It was this kind of beautiful, 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.520 tender novel, a story of a family dealing with grief 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:57.640 during COVID lockdowns, and it was astonishing, and I immediately 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.280 sent a message to Mells publisher and said, I love 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.480 this book. I need to talk to Melanie Ching. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.600 What a wonderful feeling to be immersed in someone's. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:07.840 World like that. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.120 So, Melanie, she's not only a brilliant writer, she's also 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.960 a doctor. She's a practicing GP. In this episode, you 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.799 discuss with her the power of narrative medicine. So tell 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:22.120 me a bit about what that is. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.840 Yeah, I mean, once I get past my utter incredulity 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.720 at someone being such an overachiever that they're practicing GP 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.000 and an award winning novelist. Once I got that out 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.920 of my system, it was really interesting the ways in 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.600 which that medical practice informs how she writes, informs how 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.680 she sees human beings at their best, at their worst, 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.519 when they're in positions of vulnerability, when they're in positions 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.560 of heightened anxiety. And she introduced me to the idea 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.000 of narrative medicine. And it's a really interesting kind of 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.920 conversation about the ways in which we do justice to 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.960 the stories of people who we have glance in contact 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.000 week in our lives. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.760 Coming up in just a moment, Melanie Chang, superstitious doctor. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.720 We began making read this just over a year ago, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.040 in July of twenty twenty three. It was a little 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.920 over three years after the pandemic had begun, and just 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:29.000 enough time for people to experience, process and begin reflecting 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.399 on that life altering period of time. We were inundated 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.720 with what can only be described as the COVID novel 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.880 and bya marge, I tended to avoid them, like the plague. 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.920 So why was this book an exception? Well? I do 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.400 have something of a theory about that. See, when she's 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.920 not crafting delicate, richly drawn stories, Melanie cheg as a 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:57.440 day job, is a practicing GP. I know, talk about overachiever. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.880 But not only does it mean that as a G 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:02.240 she spends a lot of her day listening to people 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.200 at the most vulnerable, they're most human. I think perhaps 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.320 it meant that for Melanie Chin, a pandemic and its 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:14.040 attendant losses and indignities offered a different kind of narrative potential. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:22.679 Before I even read my first Colvid novel, I already 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:24.920 had a sense of fatigue. You know, you go through 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.040 those years and I think we came out the other 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.680 side and we're like, oh my god, this is going 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.120 to be every bit of culture from now on, every 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.560 bit of pop culture whatever. And the Burrough might be 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.080 the first time I've read something where placing it in 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.480 that time and space feels so powerful and so moving 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:46.200 and so evocative in ways that really enhance the core 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:50.200 story rather than add to a sense of cultural fatigue. 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.680 And I'm curious about when you knew you wanted this 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:54.839 to be a kind of lockdown novel. 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.640 Well, I'd had kind of general discussions with you know, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.919 my agent, even before you know, embarking on writing again, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:09.120 and she was telling me, beware the lockdown novel. Publishers 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.400 are not interested in it, and readers don't want. 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:12.719 To go there. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.240 So I already had that in my head before i'd 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.520 even kind of had the idea for the Burrow. I 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.240 didn't have that intention initially, of course, but it was 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.600 such a big part of my life as a working 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:33.200 GP and as a homeschooling mother. And the inspiration, of 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.400 course for the novel came from my own pet, mini 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.880 lock rabbit, which we took in as a lockdown pet, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.920 as so many other families did not in rabbits necessarily, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:48.320 but you know, something small and furry to get us 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:54.760 through the bleak pandemic, and it just felt right to 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.479 set it in that era, even though I knew that 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:04.800 it might be a hard cell. I think it is 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.040 a great magnifier the pandemic. I tend to write stories 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.880 set in you know, domestic setting, small homes, because I 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.280 feel there's a lot of drama in it, and it 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:22.400 just added to the claustrophobia, the fear, and the uncertainty. 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.160 And yeah, it made sense and you know, on some level, 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.159 and this is something that I've realized later it wasn't 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.600 part of my intention, but I think it is important 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.720 that we document that time because while we don't want 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.279 to revisit it now, because we have this kind of 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:43.680 almost collective PTSD about it, myself included, I think that 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.839 in decades in the future, we will have forgotten what 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.560 it was actually like on a day to day basis, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.320 and future generations might also want to know what it 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.320 was like. I mean, we often think we'll remember, but 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:01.840 you know, as time and time again will show us 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:02.640 we to be forget. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.400 I think it's one of the things that shocked me, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.320 and most of all, I remember moments during lockdown, thinking 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.920 this will change everything forever, you know, like we're not 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.160 going back, this is going to fundamentally change the way 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.240 we are as a society, the way we relate to 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.320 each other. And the speed with which we reverted to 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.800 type with which we tried to just pretend it hadn't happened, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.080 was like the entire project of global capitalism was just like, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.560 oh no, I'm asserting myself again. I'm not remotely interested 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.880 in thinking about the ways we relate to one another, 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.760 the ways we commute, the ways we work, all of 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:38.360 that stuff. 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:40.760 Yeah, very much, sir. I think that is the power 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.200 of denial. I think a lot of us had that 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.960 feeling early on in the pandemic that you know, there 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:51.280 was almost a little bit of relief in stopping and 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:57.760 pausing and you know, reconnecting with our family. Initially, there 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.000 was some joy in doing that, and then of course 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:01.679 two years down the track. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.520 I mean, you said your homeschooled a child, So anyone 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.720 who homeschooled their child had a limited capacity to see 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.960 the romance exactly, but at a thematic level, at a 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.280 creative level, in the context of this book, the ways 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.280 in which, as you say, has this kind of magnifying 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.120 or heightening effect on a whole lot of themes and 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.720 ideas that are incredibly resonant, regardless of pandemic or not. 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.439 You know, around isolation, around intimacy, around both that combination 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.800 of claustrophobia and loneliness that can happen in families. You know, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:39.800 the ways in which those things play out. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.560 Yeah, yeah, I mean even that denial is something that 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.680 this family who are ravaged by grief are also in 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.160 the film of denial and they haven't yet moved on, 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.440 and so so that also resonates, you know, with the 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.720 smaller story of the book set within this larger pandemic theme, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.880 and working as a health professional, you know, there was 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:09.320 a great deal of fear and uncertainty and that I 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:14.199 felt was reflected in this creature, which was a prey animal. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.240 And I think it was very important that the pet 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.040 was a prey animal. It's so different from a dog 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.160 or a cat, which you know, we don't tend to 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.800 think of as predators, but of course they are, and 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.840 so they are allowed to relax in a way that 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.640 you know, it was quite striking to me as the 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.760 pet owner of a rabbit. I hadn't ever spent much 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.920 time with rabbits before. How we would come across each 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.080 other and he would bolt, and you know, he was 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.000 always alert. He doesn't even sleep with his eyes closed, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.760 and he only ever sleeps very short interludes. And you know, 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.840 that was a little bit like me during the pandemic. 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.240 I didn't sleep for very long. I was in this 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.280 heightened state of anxiety and awareness, and to have that 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.840 mirrored in this animal was really interesting to me, and 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.000 I did think this is something I'd like to explore. 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:05.480 His name was Minnie. 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.280 His name's Miles, named after by my son, after Miles Morales. 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.640 I don't want to move away from Miles just yet, 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:17.480 because I'm curious about the wise in which different kinds 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.160 of pet ownership do change es. You know they do. 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:22.840 Are you in a pet person pre Miles? 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.720 Well, no, a bit like Jin, the character in the book. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:27.959 You know, I grew up in Hong Kong and apartments, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:29.920 and so we felt it was a little bit cruel 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.840 to have pets. But I've always been quite fascinated with 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:38.720 pet ownership. I've also kind of had some difficulties to 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:39.440 reconcile with. 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:40.040 You know. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.439 For instance, when we got Miles and adopted him, we 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.680 were taking him away from his mom and his siblings, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.520 and I don't know how I completely felt about that, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.480 And he's a lone pet and so it did feel 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.360 like somewhat a selfish kind of act in some ways. 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.640 And like rabbits are very interesting, and I think I 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.280 convey this in the book that you know, they don't 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.480 give you much, but when they do give you something, 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.679 it's quite a you know, a bit of a dopamine kick. 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.920 It's like, you know, hard to get lover or something. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.040 You know, like it's the pursuit of it that we love. 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.480 But the other thing about I mean, I mentioned the 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.199 prey animal side of things, but there was also this 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.800 feeling that there was this unknowable quality two miles for me. 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.440 You know, we're always joking that he's giving us the 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.480 bombastic side eye. We don't really know what he's thinking 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.280 or what he's feeling. I mean that rabbits do this 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.160 glorious thing called a binkie, which is a little leap 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.040 in the air, and halfway through they kind of twist, 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.839 and once you've seen it, it's really delightful, and that 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.760 is when you know they're happy. But that is very 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.880 few and far between, so in between times we're really 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.520 left guessing and again in terms of the themes of 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.800 the novel, that tied in quite beautifully. I think because 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.760 we've got these four characters living in the house, they're 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.680 not really talking about the real issues with each other. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.119 They're kind of trying to interpret each other's behaviors and movements. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:19.240 There's this intense unknowable quality between them. So I love 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.959 that we might think that, you know, human beings are 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.000 more accessible to each other than animals are to humans, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.960 but there is a core in all of us which 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:30.760 is unknowable. 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:35.760 Yeah. Absolutely, And particularly as the book lays out, particularly 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.760 in crisis, there is a thing about grief and a 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.319 family or any unit of people struck by a tragedy 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.840 where everyone's affected differently and everyone's having to cope in 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.160 different ways. That can mean closing off to one another. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.000 Yes, very much so. I mean the issue here was 0:12:54.200 --> 0:13:00.360 the circumstances of the death is accidental, unexpected, and so 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.600 many of us go through life with the delusion that 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.439 tomorrow will be like yesterday, or next week will be 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.720 largely like you know, this week, And we have to 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.960 to some degree believe that, because why would we continue 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.880 doing half the things we're doing But for those people 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.480 and you know, I've had first hand experience dealing with 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.280 families through my work or friends that have gone through 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:27.120 that kind of sudden, unexpected, accidental death, and it is rocking. 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.560 I remember a friend of mine saying she didn't trust 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:36.680 the universe anymore. And so they also are not, as 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.480 I discussed in the book, a religious family and a 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:41.640 family of faith. They are very much a kind of 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.880 family based in science, belief, and cause and effect. And 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.559 so when an accident happens, what they tend to do 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:52.840 in the aftermath, at least family and gene, is to 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.880 look back and think, what could I have done differently? 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.839 And there's a lot of shame in that, a lot 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.880 of guilt in that, and that is what they're brewing 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:06.000 in in these years after the loss, their own guilt, 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.360 and they don't want to disclose it for fear of 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:09.360 what that might mean. 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.920 And also the difficulty of responsibility to others like that 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:17.040 sheer impossibility of being a parent while grappling with your 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.880 own shame, guilt, grief. You know, that thing about the 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.800 need to have that kind of care for others and 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.240 to be there for others and to be reliable to others. 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:32.560 That absolutely stifles your character's capacity, but human beings capacity 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.520 to go through their own process of grieving. 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.920 Yeah, and we see, you know, for instance, Jin revert 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.240 to some of this what I call magical thinking that 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.760 he had as as a child, like superstitious thinking that 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.520 if you do this, you somehow have some control over 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:54.720 the future. And similarly, you know, Lucy does retreat to 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.000 prayer and Amy gets quite angry about that. And I think, 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.280 you know, that was important to me because I've always 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.040 felt a little bit envious of people of faith and 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.720 people of religion, because if you believe in cause and 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.400 effect and you're very scientific, then it comes with this 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:15.040 huge burden of responsibility as well, because you then the 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:19.800 implications are that every behavior, every action has untold or 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:24.840 unforeseen consequences, and that really comes into play when an 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.960 accident happens. And that's a huge burden really to bear, 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.000 and that's what we're seeing in this family. And so 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.080 in order to try and alleviate themselves of that, they 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.720 start to look to prayer or they look to more 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.800 superstitious thinking. And I think we all do that on 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.560 some level. There's a huge contradiction even in myself and 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:48.960 a lot of the ways I behave. 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.240 Are you superstitious? Yes, I would say so. 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.960 I'm admitting it now. I might not have I hadn't 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.920 read of them, because who wants a superstitious doctor? 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.440 Right? But I think I do. What a superstitious doctor? 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:06.800 What a doctor? That's like, well, you've done everything right, 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.640 but now I'm going to tap this three times? They 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.080 kind of walk around the building or whatever. I'm okay 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:13.480 with that. 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:14.560 Okay, Well that's good. 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:15.280 Yeah. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.560 Well I think you know, as a child, I was 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.680 quite superstitious. And you know, you could argue that a 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.640 lot of the things that we do attached to faith 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.320 are a kind of form of superstition or a type 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:34.200 of way of regaining control over the uncontrollable. And so 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:35.800 so yeah, that's what I was trying to achieve. 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.960 After the break, Melanie shares the details of her own 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.280 life that inspired the Burrow And have you ever heard 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.359 of narrative medicine? I hadn't, but it's crucial for understanding 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:58.720 this book. We'll be right back. Grandmother's are a recurring 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:03.160 thing in your work. Generally, you're clearly interested in grandmother's 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:07.359 as narrative engines and as a particular type of human being. 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:08.600 What is it about. 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:14.760 Grandma's Well, I only had one grandmother growing up, so 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.919 my mother's mother died when she was very young, four 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.240 years of age, and I think that had its own 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:25.280 impact on me and maybe even plays into this book. 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.800 But my other grandmother was my Chinese grandmother, who I 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.640 was actually named after, so my Chinese name, so Lynn, 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.840 is actually her name. But I could not communicate with 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.000 her because I don't speak Chinese and she didn't speak English, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.240 and so it was a lot of mystery associated with 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.480 our relationship. And I wrote about that in a short 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:50.600 story included in my collection Australia Day. And Now, of 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.800 course I have my own children and they have two grandmothers, 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:58.960 and I think it's quite a unique and special relationship there. 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.520 Even in the book about the distance of the generation 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:08.840 allowing something quite fresh and new, it's very different from parenting. Now, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:13.439 even having friends that are embarking on that relationship with 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.720 their own grandchildren, they talk about, you know, how magical 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.480 it is, how often healing it is, because it's kind 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.800 of all of the fun stuff about parenting without as 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.040 much of the day to day tedium of it. 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:35.199 That distance and closeness locked up together is such an 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.960 important part of it. And it does strike me that 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:44.200 grandparents in migrant families there's a particularly interesting thing at play, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.800 which is the kind of gulf in lived experience. So 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.720 those challenges of communication, of kind of sharing a worldview 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:57.360 or reality are kind of heightened by both generational divide 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.000 and then place of living, geographical context, all of that stuff. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.199 Yeah, very much so. And so we didn't mention the 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.760 Lucy's other pair of grandparents who are exactly that, you know, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.719 they're Jin's parents, and there is this huge kind of 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.560 gulf between them. They do speak English, but kind of 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.320 haltingly and culturally they're quite separated. And in the book 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.359 we talk about the gifts that they buy not being 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.200 you know, so welcomed by Lucy because they're often either 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.240 judged to be too simple for her, or the clothes 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.639 are too big because they're trying to get a lot 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.520 of wear out of them, and Jin, you know, expresses 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:42.560 some jealousy about how Lucy has a closer relationship with Pauline, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.960 who Amy's mother in the book. 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.200 Yeah, Pauline is such a wonderful character. I do love her. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:50.280 Yeah, I love it. 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.560 You mentioned before your debut was a book of short 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.640 stories called Australia Day. But I'm curious, since then, you've 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:02.000 written two novels and they are both beautiful in many ways. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.959 I would say, delicate novels that take the kind of 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.200 energy of a really wonderful short story and work out 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.320 how to render it deeper and more complex. I'm curious 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.320 about whether that's a deliberate trajectory. Have you moved away 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.880 from the short story or are these boundaries fluid? 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.280 I think you know, when I started writing, I mistakenly 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.359 thought short stories were easier to write, which, of course, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:27.840 as anyone who writes short stories, it's not true. They're 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.400 different from the point of view of time, though they 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.399 are easier to complete, and so that was good for 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.399 me when I had another job. But I came to 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.760 love the form. And the reason I love the form 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.160 is sometimes the same reasons that people find short stories difficult, 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.320 which is that they demand more of the reader. They 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.840 expect the reader to rise up to the challenge, fill 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.600 in a lot of gaps with their own imagination, and 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.400 so that's hard if you're used to reading novels where 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.080 everything is tied up really neatly. But once you kind 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.760 of get hooked on that then you present reading novels 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.240 that tell you everything because you like to be respected 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.000 as a reader and so and I enjoy that, and 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.240 so I think i've I have taken that forward into 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.800 writing longer form. And I don't write very long forms. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:16.040 You know. 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.520 My two books are short novels. But that's because I'm 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.840 just a ruthless editor. And that is what happened with 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.800 my apprenticeship through short story writing. And I love the 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.359 quote from Toni Morrison that it's often what you don't 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.560 write that gives what you do write its power. And 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.639 I do a narrative medicine course at Melbourne Union and 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.600 a student there recently talked about the negative spaces and 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:44.160 short stories, which I really love as well. So yeah, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.640 I've brought that across to the novels and I think 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:49.800 that's how I'm going to practice going forward. 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.480 Can you talk about the relationship for you between medicine 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:54.640 and writing. 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.679 Yeah, I find them to be quite complimentary, and I 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.719 think that maybe to do with me practicing in general 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.960 practice rather than maybe surgery per se. But every day 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:09.919 when I go to work and I sit down and 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:12.720 I call someone into the room, the first thing that 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.119 happens is that they tell me a story, the story 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.879 of their illness. And a great supervisor I had in 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.000 general practice a long time ago told me, look, just 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.679 spend some moments one day when you're not working, sitting 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.600 in a medical waiting room, and just imagine what those 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.480 people are doing as they sit there. They are practicing 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.240 what they're going to say when they sit in the chair. 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.119 And of course that's true, and I've done it myself 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.639 when I go to a GP practice. So words are 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.600 really important. So they tell us. And that's what narrative 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.520 medicine is about. It's about the patient's story meeting the 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:51.400 doctor's story and creating something entirely new. But yeah, I've 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.000 always found it to be, you know, an inspiration. I 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.399 don't write about specific patients, you know, I write in 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:02.159 the fictional space, but of course I draw on the 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.080