Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven Am. Marie
Speaker 1: Carty is a writer, broadcaster, and former panelist on the
Speaker 1: ABC's First Tuesday Book Club. I've spent years listening to
Speaker 1: her and reading her work. Mariek's passion and enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: the books she loves is contagious. But she's also direct
Speaker 1: and unapologetic when a book isn't for her, so you
Speaker 1: always know that when she recommends something, it's going to
Speaker 1: be worth your time. I couldn't be more thrilled to
Speaker 1: be bringing you her favorite books of the year, a
Speaker 1: ready made list of what to read this summer. Her
Speaker 1: list starts with a sprawling novel about friendship and love
Speaker 1: and winds its way through so many other huge themes grief, violence, war,
Speaker 1: and how the Internet has ruined us. Today, Marie Carty
Speaker 1: with her five favorite books of twenty twenty five. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 1: December twenty three. MARIEK.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you here, and I am very
Speaker 1: excited to talk about books with you.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to chat books with you.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me about the first one that you
Speaker 1: want to talk about.
Speaker 3: Where do I want to start. I think I might
Speaker 3: start with Eric Pukner's Dream State. It's a big novel.
Speaker 3: It is fantastic. It's a novel about love. It's a
Speaker 3: novel set over decades, which is one of my kind
Speaker 3: of favorite ways to tell a narrative fiction. But it's
Speaker 3: one of those ones that I went, Oh, my god,
Speaker 3: has anyone heard of this fabulous? Because no one I
Speaker 3: know is talking about it, And as a film and
Speaker 3: television writer, I went, oh, I wonder if someone's got
Speaker 3: the rights, I'll google it. And he's been featured on
Speaker 3: Oprah's Book Club, the rights have been picked up by Apple,
Speaker 3: it's been I don't know, directed by Emerald Fanel or something.
Speaker 3: It's one of those it's not a secret. It's not
Speaker 3: a secret. I think it made a bigger mark in
Speaker 3: the States than it did here because it doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to be a novel that amongst my big reader friends
Speaker 3: they have picked up. But it is so fabulous and
Speaker 3: everyone who's picked it up since adores it. It begins
Speaker 3: on the precipice of a young couple about to get married,
Speaker 3: Cec and Charlie. It's a book set in Montana, mostly
Speaker 3: at Charlie's family holiday house. Charlie's best friend Garrett picks
Speaker 3: cec up from the airport for the wedding, and thus
Speaker 3: begins a journey between these three characters that spans decades
Speaker 3: and love and loss and grief and children, and showing
Speaker 3: us that who you are as a young person is
Speaker 3: not set in stone. It shows change through characters, but
Speaker 3: it's one of those books that shows change through climate
Speaker 3: and environments so beautifully and subtly. I think often cli
Speaker 3: fi can really beat us over the head, particularly people
Speaker 3: who are interested in the degradation of climate. This is
Speaker 3: handled so beautifully and subtly. You watch the environment kind
Speaker 3: of fall apart as these lives fall apart. It's just
Speaker 3: the most beautiful epic novel.
Speaker 1: I also love an epic novel, something that really gives
Speaker 1: you the chance to follow people cross generations and across lifetimes.
Speaker 1: One of my recent favorites was The Beasting by Paul
Speaker 1: Murray Ah from a couple of years ago. But tell
Speaker 1: me a bit more about the ambition of this novel,
Speaker 1: because it begins, I think with a kind of sort
Speaker 1: of classic set up. There's a wedding being planned, there's
Speaker 1: hints of a love triangle, but it moves far beyond.
Speaker 3: That it does. And I mean just I adored the
Speaker 3: Beasting as well, and I do think there is a
Speaker 3: Venn diagram here that does cross over the corrections and
Speaker 3: all of those books that are about big family dynamics,
Speaker 3: and this, I suppose is about a love triangle, as
Speaker 3: you said, and really unfolding these characters over time and
Speaker 3: the way their lives overlap, the way their loves overlap.
Speaker 3: I guess I love watching characters grow because it shows
Speaker 3: us as we're growing and all that what we always feel,
Speaker 3: we're fixed in a moment wherever we are right now
Speaker 3: is who we are, is what we feel, is what
Speaker 3: our love life will always be like, what our marriage
Speaker 3: will always be like. And I think Eric so grandly
Speaker 3: sweeps through that in a way that gets you into
Speaker 3: the minute shave of these characters' minds and the absolute
Speaker 3: stumbles they make, the missteps, the way they hurt each other.
Speaker 3: But you know, we're all growing old together. What a
Speaker 3: gift it is to grow old together and to know
Speaker 3: people over the course of time and all your misspent
Speaker 3: youth and the bad decisions you made and the chaos
Speaker 3: of your youth. I think he does it so deftly
Speaker 3: and beautifully and in such a way that holds up
Speaker 3: a mirror. I just thought it was such a wonderful book.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your second pick, Well, I.
Speaker 3: Think I want to talk about Shealdine Brooks Memorial Days,
Speaker 3: which is a nonfiction of Geraldine Brooks. Oh one of
Speaker 3: my favorite wonderful and it's a book about grief, which
Speaker 3: can be a very private thing and mostly is a
Speaker 3: very internal thing. And I always appreciate writers that we
Speaker 3: admire turning themselves inside out and putting that grief on
Speaker 3: the page. Shelaldine Brooks husband Tony Howitz, who was a
Speaker 3: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. They'd been married for thirty five
Speaker 3: years American. He died very, very suddenly in DC on
Speaker 3: Memorial Day. That's the title, and it's a real interrogation
Speaker 3: of the nonlinear aspect of grief. It really does show
Speaker 3: the kind of really overworked medical system and how the
Speaker 3: humanity sometimes gets lost in those calls, and how she
Speaker 3: receives that information, how she needs to access her husband's body.
Speaker 3: But you see her in that fog of grief and
Speaker 3: just going into organization mode, which is what a lot
Speaker 3: of people do in those circumstances. Tony was a public figure.
Speaker 3: She has to arrange all the public memorials as well
Speaker 3: as the funeral and the casket and all those things.
Speaker 3: But she also looks at other cultures and how they grieve,
Speaker 3: the rituals of grieving, which I think she doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like she properly went through a ritual of grief. So
Speaker 3: three years after Tony's death, she goes to Flinda's Island,
Speaker 3: which is a place they've visited together off the coast
Speaker 3: of Tasmania, and she looks at the history of Flinda's
Speaker 3: Island and the Aboriginal history, the first nations, massacres that
Speaker 3: have happened, and she really elegantly uses those kind of
Speaker 3: practices to understand her own grief. They don't feel tacked on,
Speaker 3: they don't feel like platitudes. It feels like she is
Speaker 3: trying to understand grief and love and loss through opening
Speaker 3: herself up to the world and opening herself up to
Speaker 3: a sense of place and purpose. Grief is chaotic and
Speaker 3: clumsy and frantic and feverish, and she feels all those
Speaker 3: things she's lost in a fog. But ultimately she tries
Speaker 3: to educate herself as much as one can to understand
Speaker 3: this unimaginable thing that's happened.
Speaker 1: Coming up, an old friend sends Marique the book he's
Speaker 1: just written. What could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 3: Okay? Number three, Well, I think I want to talk
Speaker 3: about VJ. Karana's debut novel, The Passenger Seat. I've done
Speaker 3: VJ for years. We were both at Triple J at
Speaker 3: the same time a million years ago. He's a brilliant
Speaker 3: human being, a kind interesting man. This is his first novel,
Speaker 3: and he emailed me he said, can I send it
Speaker 3: to you? And I went, okay. You know, I always
Speaker 3: quite nervous when a friend says they're going to send
Speaker 3: you their book. It is unbelievable. It is such a
Speaker 3: stunning novel. It's about two young men, Teddy and Adam,
Speaker 3: who they've disaffected. They go on a road trip together. Look,
Speaker 3: I know it sounds kind of trying to go it's
Speaker 3: about toxic masculinity, because isn't everything these days, But it
Speaker 3: is a really subtle interrogation of all the forks in
Speaker 3: the road that young men can go down, all the
Speaker 3: decisions that they might have made at different points in
Speaker 3: their life, how they end up in this quite claustrophobic
Speaker 3: van together and what that trip looks like. I think
Speaker 3: I've read it in three days. I couldn't put it down.
Speaker 3: I kept gasping. It's very shocking, it's very sobering. But
Speaker 3: VJ makes some incredible choices narratively, including a final chapter
Speaker 3: which was the most stunning creative to see I think
Speaker 3: editorial decision on his part to do so. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: still awed by it.
Speaker 1: And Kanana has said that this novel is based on
Speaker 1: a real event, which I speak about without I suppose
Speaker 1: getting into too much detail, but a real violent event
Speaker 1: from twenty nineteen and when that happened.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of questions about why, about the
Speaker 2: motive that the people involved could have possibly had for
Speaker 2: what unfolded. So to what extent does this book, I suppose,
Speaker 2: try to answer that question of why violence happens, and
Speaker 2: does it provide any answers.
Speaker 3: I think it's really deeply insightful. I mean, obviously I
Speaker 3: often access my social education through fiction. I mean obviously
Speaker 3: I read a lot of nonfiction and political news and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, But sometimes those dance think
Speaker 3: pieces about toxic masculinity and why young men do the
Speaker 3: things that they do, and you know, I fade out
Speaker 3: a bit, whereas this is the most incisive view. These
Speaker 3: two young men come from different family homes. There's a
Speaker 3: great line from the book saying approaching the wrong person
Speaker 3: with open hands can be fatal, and that speaks to
Speaker 3: a lot of different characters in the book. But I
Speaker 3: think it really searingly hones in on what it is
Speaker 3: for someone who is a little lost, who is looking
Speaker 3: for answers, who is standing there with open hands, and
Speaker 3: they unfortunately take a step in the wrong direction. So
Speaker 3: it's interesting that you say, I mean, it is the
Speaker 3: kernel of it a real life event, but there's quite
Speaker 3: a few real life events that we're not going to
Speaker 3: mention in here that I'm remember saying of VJ, or
Speaker 3: is this based on? And so I think he's pulled
Speaker 3: together a lot of pieces of a lot of familiar
Speaker 3: tragedies that have young men at the heart of them
Speaker 3: and just kind of woven them into a really compelling story.
Speaker 1: And would you call it an Australian book because VJ,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's more Australian than working at Triple J.
Speaker 1: But he he's spent much of his career overseas, obviously
Speaker 1: in the UK in Europe. So is there anything about
Speaker 1: this that feels unique to Australia or is it more
Speaker 1: of a universal experience.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting because it's a road trip and he
Speaker 3: writes about landscape really beautifully, and I guess, growing up
Speaker 3: in Australia, my head immediately places in an Australian landscape.
Speaker 3: But it's set really in America. The boys call their
Speaker 3: mother's mom and they're heading on a road trip with
Speaker 3: the intent to end up in Alaska. But you don't
Speaker 3: feel completely melded in America. I think there is unfortunately
Speaker 3: a universality to these two young men and the decisions
Speaker 3: that they make, and I think the landscape becomes a
Speaker 3: part of that. So really great book for anyone wanting,
Speaker 3: as you said, to understand why some young men make
Speaker 3: the decisions they do. I think this is more interesting
Speaker 3: to me than listening to, say Joe Rogan's podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: sure that's true again number four, So number four, I've
Speaker 3: gone nonfit. I've gone Peter Beinart's Being Jewish After the
Speaker 3: Destruction of Gaza, which is a book that was recommended
Speaker 3: to me. He toured Australia this year. I think he
Speaker 3: did quite a few events, did a few in conversations.
Speaker 3: This book is really interesting. It's obviously from a progressive
Speaker 3: Jewish perspective that really speaks to Jewish history, Jewish identity,
Speaker 3: how a lot of Jewish people wrestle with a war
Speaker 3: that is being waged ostensibly in their name. I found
Speaker 3: it really interesting because it begins with a note to
Speaker 3: my former friend and Peter speaking about some a friend
Speaker 3: that he's lost over this issue, which as we know,
Speaker 3: is hugely emotional for people, and people get very distressed
Speaker 3: about it. I've lost some friends over this. I was
Speaker 3: looking to educate myself. I was looking to understand different voices. Obviously,
Speaker 3: there's some great new books by Palestinian writers this year.
Speaker 3: Sarah m Salle and Randa abdel Fatar have both got
Speaker 3: books out. I found this one, Peter's book to be
Speaker 3: incredibly informative, incredibly compassionate. He has said, there's a great
Speaker 3: quote what he said, by reading these words, you have
Speaker 3: agreed to walk with me. And I think that is
Speaker 3: such an invitational way to begin this book. You sit
Speaker 3: down a new walk with him and you listen. I
Speaker 3: gave it to my father, who had some quite different
Speaker 3: views than me on what was happening in Gaza, and
Speaker 3: he found it very moving as well. And I think
Speaker 3: I would encourage anybody who is looking to have more
Speaker 3: gentle conversations or ways to access this information to pick
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 1: Coming up a book so violently disgusting, you may want
Speaker 1: to hose down afterwards. Okay, an incredible mix here so far,
Speaker 1: do you have a fifth pick?
Speaker 3: So the reason I'm interested in this book is my
Speaker 3: friend Tase said, you have to read this book. I
Speaker 3: found it so violently disgusting. I wanted to be hosed
Speaker 3: down after reading it. And I'm like, I'm listening and
Speaker 3: so like a moth to a flame, of course, I
Speaker 3: went to this book and it's Tony Tulla Timody's Rejection.
Speaker 3: It's a series of short fictional essays from really gross,
Speaker 3: unlikable characters. I saw a great comment on it saying
Speaker 3: it's like being inside the Internet, and I think that's
Speaker 3: exactly what it's like. It covers in cells. It's really
Speaker 3: violent characters. I mean, it's cringe culture. It speaks to
Speaker 3: how isolated and how set in our worldview we get
Speaker 3: when we sit alone with a device. I found near
Speaker 3: the end of the book, he started to doubt himself.
Speaker 3: There's two pieces at the end of the book where
Speaker 3: I thought, you're second guessing yourself now, and you're trying
Speaker 3: to out clever yourself and get in front of the
Speaker 3: criticism that you're going to get for this book. And
Speaker 3: I thought that diminished it quite a lot for me.
Speaker 3: I thought he showed the puppet master's strings, and he
Speaker 3: showed his self consciousness about all the bold work he
Speaker 3: was trying to do, and I thought it really took
Speaker 3: away from the abject disgusting power that he'd put in
Speaker 3: the previous essays.
Speaker 1: Well, I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going
Speaker 1: to read that one, but the other four on your
Speaker 1: list sound like excellent choices for the summer. Marie, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Ruby a big fan