Speaker 1: Get over and welcome to conversations.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Look, if you need any proof that I was a
Speaker 1: cultural ignoramus, it is the fact that I had no
Speaker 1: knowledge of today's guest and the work that she's done,
Speaker 1: and how famous she's now become. Hannah Kent is a
Speaker 1: South Australian lady who's written a couple of amazing books,
Speaker 1: and she's just I was reading a review in the
Speaker 1: Week in Australian and a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: I told the story of this rotary exchange student her
Speaker 1: lands in rageavic and Iceland. Can imagine in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night that's permanently dark at that time of
Speaker 1: the yearn in the middle of winter, and there's no
Speaker 1: one there to meet. How does she negotiate that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's all written in her book, Always Home, Always Homesick,
Speaker 1: a memoir by Hannah Kent. Hannah, welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming so much for having me. It's a joy.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine what it's like this Well, I think
Speaker 1: a little girl at seventeen. I don't think that's an
Speaker 1: insulting description of her.
Speaker 2: No, I'll take it now, at the wise old age
Speaker 2: of forty. Yeah, it was definitely very young, though at
Speaker 2: the time I probably thought that was very grown up.
Speaker 1: So your lob in Rashevi in the didn't I say
Speaker 1: it correctly?
Speaker 2: Reykovic very close.
Speaker 1: Well you can now speak Icelandic.
Speaker 2: I can. Yeah, it took me a little while.
Speaker 1: I just keep thinking of that sweetish ship on the chef,
Speaker 1: on the muffet. It must have been a difficult language
Speaker 1: to pick up.
Speaker 2: Oh that's what it sounded like, suddenly to my years.
Speaker 2: When I first arrived, I remember I had this extraordinary
Speaker 2: experience of when I did laugh finally land in Keflabic Airport,
Speaker 2: which is about forty five minutes outside of the capital Reykuvic.
Speaker 2: It was about midnight, you know, it was dark, as
Speaker 2: you say, and when no one came to get me,
Speaker 2: I thought, well, I better do something about it. And
Speaker 2: someone very kindly gave me some coins and pointed me
Speaker 2: to a payphone because I had one phone number of
Speaker 2: one contact in Iceland. And I remember I went over
Speaker 2: there and I put the coins in and I dialed
Speaker 2: the number and this woman picks up and she has
Speaker 2: this beautiful, melodious voice. But I couldn't understand nothing. I
Speaker 2: could and even tell the words apart from one another,
Speaker 2: and I'm sort of trying to interrupt her and say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sorry, do you speak English. I'm Hannah,
Speaker 2: I'm the exchange student, and she that she hangs up
Speaker 2: with me, and then so I called the number again
Speaker 2: and that I hear the woman and I realize, of
Speaker 2: course that it's not anyone at all. It's just the
Speaker 2: Icelandic equivalent of your fault, your coal can not be connected.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that was probably the first time I ever
Speaker 2: heard Icelandic. It wasn't necessarily an auspicious beginning.
Speaker 1: So you loved it. And I know it's because I've
Speaker 1: read but our listeners. Why the airport's closing. It's getting
Speaker 1: close to midnight. The airport's closing. You're an hour or
Speaker 1: forty five minutes away from the capital city. You don't
Speaker 1: know the airport's cleared, everyone's gone. What's going through your mind?
Speaker 1: How are you feeling?
Speaker 2: I probably, you know, I was a very optimistic young woman,
Speaker 2: and I probably allowed about an hour before I really thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I've been forgotten because by that stage, as
Speaker 2: you say, there were no more flights coming in, and
Speaker 2: there was no one else there, and after I called
Speaker 2: that number, I didn't really have anything else I could do.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is two thousand and three January two
Speaker 2: thousand and three. When I arrived, I knew nothing about Iceland.
Speaker 2: It was this It's a country now that I know
Speaker 2: many people have traveled to, and it seems to have
Speaker 2: a cultural prominence, you know, whether it's the music or
Speaker 2: the writers. People know about Iceland, But back then I
Speaker 2: really didn't. All I had to arm myself for this
Speaker 2: exchange was Burke CDs. I had listened to two Berk
Speaker 2: CDs and my aunt had also very kindly torn out
Speaker 2: six pages of a Gourmet Traveler, which was all about
Speaker 2: icelandic cod and this is what I had, you know,
Speaker 2: So I didn't. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what the country looked like. I
Speaker 2: remember peering outside of those airport you know, windows, sliding doors,
Speaker 2: and seeing nothing. The darkness was so absolute, permanent darkness.
Speaker 2: Te yeah, well they in around that time, they have
Speaker 2: about three or four hours of I wouldn't necessarily describe
Speaker 2: it even as daylight, but sort of as a blue gloaming.
Speaker 2: But at this time midnight it was pitch black, and
Speaker 2: so I just sort of sat there in the airport, thinking, oh, right, well,
Speaker 2: something will happen. They'll either eventually remember and come and
Speaker 2: get me, or you know, I'll just keep waiting here
Speaker 2: till morning. There was nothing else I could do. I
Speaker 2: didn't have a mobile, And eventually I do see this
Speaker 2: woman coming over to me, and I'm thinking, finally someone's here.
Speaker 2: She comes up, but she's not she's not smiling, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh, no, what have I done? And she
Speaker 2: comes up and she speaks to me in Icelandic and
Speaker 2: I apologize again, you know, for together the talathu enscrew.
Speaker 2: You know, do you speak English? Which was the only
Speaker 2: line I knew, And then she says, oh, you can't
Speaker 2: stay here. The airport is closing. And I had no idea.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, sorry, should I go wait outside, you know,
Speaker 2: pointing to where I can see just these mountains of
Speaker 2: snow and she looks at me like I'm crazy. He says, no,
Speaker 2: don't go outside's crazy? Uh do you have someone that
Speaker 2: I can call for you? And I was like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: I have this number, and I gave it to her
Speaker 2: and she dialed it and she said, no, you're no
Speaker 2: this number isn't working, and then she said, look, you
Speaker 2: can't stay here to do that. Really well, oh, I've
Speaker 2: listened to a lot of and she says she points
Speaker 2: outside and there's a bus with someone just finally getting on,
Speaker 2: and she says, look, this bus is going to Rekkuvic.
Speaker 2: You just have to get on it and I'll see
Speaker 2: if I can find someone to come and get to,
Speaker 2: you know, security guard, no idea who I was. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, but I don't have a ticket, and
Speaker 2: where does it go? And she's like, just get on
Speaker 2: the bus. It's going now. So I start making a
Speaker 2: run for it because I can see that the bus
Speaker 2: is closing, and you know, I get outside, it's freezing cold,
Speaker 2: and I'm just slapping my hand against the side of
Speaker 2: the bus which has started to pull away. Eventually it stops,
Speaker 2: it lets me on and I get on, and then
Speaker 2: for forty five minutes I'm taken through this just more
Speaker 2: darkness until eventually we get some street lights and I
Speaker 2: see this quiet capital city of Reikuvik, And eventually we
Speaker 2: put up at the last stop and I'm the last
Speaker 2: person on the bus and the driver says, you know,
Speaker 2: you have to get out and so I do this
Speaker 2: empty parking lot and then I see a man in
Speaker 2: a dressing gown waiting for me. That's going to this
Speaker 2: Land's Welcome to Iceland, Hannah, and I was sort of
Speaker 2: wide eyed, and he comes up and he says, oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: I thought you were coming next week. I just completely
Speaker 2: forgot here. So that was my first taste of Iceland.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll come back to that, because I was intrigued
Speaker 1: by your first host family. Why did you pick Iceland?
Speaker 1: I know you explained it in the book, but people
Speaker 1: will say, why would you pick as an exchange student?
Speaker 1: You could probably pick France or Italy or the USA
Speaker 1: and some places like even Canada, even though it was cold.
Speaker 1: Why Iceland?
Speaker 2: You know what? I didn't pick it. It was I
Speaker 2: went on in a rotary exchange student. I was in
Speaker 2: year twelve, so I would have been sixteen years old,
Speaker 2: and I remember sitting in assembly and the counselors running
Speaker 2: through community notices and then she sort of says, oh,
Speaker 2: the local rotary club is accepting applicants for their twelve
Speaker 2: month exchange program. And at the time, you know, I
Speaker 2: was someone who had always loved writing and always loved
Speaker 2: the arts. But being in year twelve, I had felt,
Speaker 2: you know, really strong pressure to choose a career or
Speaker 2: a vocation that would be stable, that I would be
Speaker 2: set to for life. I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And
Speaker 2: as soon as she said that, I thought, oh, that's
Speaker 2: twelve months grace then to make those decisions. I wasn't
Speaker 2: even thinking of where I would go. I came home,
Speaker 2: I told my parents, I'm going overseas for twelve months
Speaker 2: next year. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going
Speaker 2: to take a gap year. They're sort of looking at
Speaker 2: one another and there's a bit of upbeat and then they,
Speaker 2: you know, coming straight with their support. I have an
Speaker 2: amazing family. But all through the application process, I had
Speaker 2: no idea. I hadn't really thought about where it was
Speaker 2: that I would like to go until I had to
Speaker 2: fill out a form where we were all applicants were
Speaker 2: asked to nominate I think about five countries to be
Speaker 2: considered for, but ultimately it said, this is a courtesy,
Speaker 2: we're going to interview you, we're going to match you
Speaker 2: up with the place. And so I think at that
Speaker 2: stage I thought, well, where do I want to go.
Speaker 2: What do I want to see? And I'd never seen
Speaker 2: snow before, you know, grew up in the Adelaide Hills
Speaker 2: and beautiful Paramount country snows. I remember one time in
Speaker 2: the year ten it snowed and then immediately melted and
Speaker 2: everyone went completely bananas. But no, I just thought that
Speaker 2: that would be pretty extraordinary to go somewhere completely different.
Speaker 2: And so I think I did list, you know, Canada, Norway, Sweden,
Speaker 2: and I hope the committee would get the gist. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I was in my final interview where
Speaker 2: they were asking us questions such as, how would you
Speaker 2: feel if you know you encountered this or that problem
Speaker 2: or challenge, And I was asked how I would how
Speaker 2: I would respond if I were sent somewhere where it
Speaker 2: was dark, you know a great deal of time in
Speaker 2: the winter, and I was so enthusiastic. Without thinking, I
Speaker 2: just said, oh, that would be amazing. I would love
Speaker 2: to experience that. And I remember the rotarian picking up
Speaker 2: his pencil and sort of doing a big cross next
Speaker 2: to my name, and that's I'm pretty sure that's why
Speaker 2: I ended up being the only person sent to Iceland
Speaker 2: that year.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the early years. It seemed to me
Speaker 1: you were a childhood comfort or solace escape in books
Speaker 1: from an early age. I did, I did about your
Speaker 1: mum was a teacher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mum was a primary school principal, and I
Speaker 2: think she saw very early on that words and stories
Speaker 2: were something that made sense to me. I was very
Speaker 2: shy child. I was very softly spoken, often didn't speak.
Speaker 2: I was quite solitary too, not in a way, not
Speaker 2: to say that I was lonely, because I don't remember
Speaker 2: ever really feeling lonely as a kid, but I was
Speaker 2: just that little, shy, daydreaming child. And I think as
Speaker 2: I taught myself to read quite early on, probably because
Speaker 2: my parents read to me very early on, and I
Speaker 2: quickly made the correlation between those symbols on the page
Speaker 2: and the words that were being spoken, and words then
Speaker 2: became a means by which I could make sense of
Speaker 2: the world around me. It was something that felt magical
Speaker 2: to me. As soon as I started reading, and I
Speaker 2: could read to myself silently in my head, I realized
Speaker 2: that I never really saw the words on the page.
Speaker 2: I just saw, you know, like movies in my mind,
Speaker 2: and I could completely leave whatever situation I was in
Speaker 2: or whatever emotional state I was in, and be someone else.
Speaker 2: I could go to the other side of the world.
Speaker 2: I could time travel. This was by five. I remember
Speaker 2: being I remember having this feeling. I remember being in
Speaker 2: reception and having this response to books. It was quite
Speaker 2: it was quite early on, and I remember my frustration
Speaker 2: then at school when I had to sort of dutifully
Speaker 2: chant aloud the big books with my teacher and just
Speaker 2: the excruciating weight before she turned the page. I remember
Speaker 2: that very clearly. But yeah, very soon after that, probably
Speaker 2: around the age six, my parents tell me that I
Speaker 2: announced that I wanted to be a writer, and I
Speaker 2: think that's because I worked out that this magical thing,
Speaker 2: you know, these magical objects were actually made by people,
Speaker 2: and I thought I want to be able to wield
Speaker 2: that kind of magic.
Speaker 1: Have you got any of those early writings.
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, I do. I have my first short story,
Speaker 2: which very clearly I already have a you know, a
Speaker 2: taste for the dramatic. Yeah, it's about a fish who
Speaker 2: wrecks vengeance on the local community when they start up
Speaker 2: a fish and chip shop locally and family start getting murdered.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it secks. It sicks. Yeah, I've still got
Speaker 2: a copy of it.
Speaker 1: What did Your mum was a high school school principal.
Speaker 1: Your dad was principle and wanted you.
Speaker 2: My dad worked in in finance, you know, for a
Speaker 2: long time he worked managing people's super funds.
Speaker 1: And you went to high school at Heathville.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: He thought high school country. It's not really country, but
Speaker 1: it's in the hills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess regional. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Renowned for its volleyball team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was on one. I mean I
Speaker 2: was probably the shortest person on it, but very definitely
Speaker 2: back caught. But I loved it. It was great school.
Speaker 1: Hannah Kent, he's my guest, folks. Autobiography. I think that's
Speaker 1: the best way of describing it.
Speaker 2: Memoir.
Speaker 1: Memoir. That's a memoir. That's what it says, always home,
Speaker 1: always home, So a memoir. I should have seen it
Speaker 1: on the front cover back shortly, folks, My guest today
Speaker 1: and conversations is Hannah Kent, a young lady who grew
Speaker 1: up in the Adelaide Hills, had a fascination with reading
Speaker 1: and writing. Wrote her first story and first book when
Speaker 1: she was six, and she still has got it about
Speaker 1: a fish who reaped vengeance on the local community for
Speaker 1: the for the fish and chip shop. But her memoir
Speaker 1: it's called always Home, Always Homesick, based on I guess
Speaker 1: her experiences as an rotary exchange student in Iceland. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you just tuned in, you've been accepted to go
Speaker 1: to we haven't been accepted to go to Iceland. You're
Speaker 1: still making your decision. If you submitted your requests and
Speaker 1: someone comes along and says Iceland, and what goes through
Speaker 1: your mind.
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was pretty taken aback. And I
Speaker 2: remember the first thing I did when I put the
Speaker 2: phone down was, you know, the family's crowding around. We
Speaker 2: went and got the atlas, because that's what you did
Speaker 2: back then. You got out of the atlas, and we
Speaker 2: we found Iceland, and you know, there was one page
Speaker 2: half a page sort of dedicated to it, and all
Speaker 2: we can see is, you know, two dots on it.
Speaker 2: One's down south Raykiavik, the capital, and then there's another
Speaker 2: one in ARKWADERTI and I had been told that most
Speaker 2: people who were sent to smaller sort of populations tend
Speaker 2: to be around the capitol. So I was like, oh, okay, great,
Speaker 2: you know, I'll probably be around Raykivic or Aarkuderti this
Speaker 2: other town that you know, reads a mention on the atlas.
Speaker 2: But then about a month before I was due to leave,
Speaker 2: I was told that I was going to be sponsored
Speaker 2: by the Rotary Club of so the Croaker, which looks
Speaker 2: a lot like soda Cracker when it's written down.
Speaker 1: I've tried. I've seen the name written and I can't
Speaker 1: fathom how you can understand all the little symbols on
Speaker 1: it and pronunciation.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. So yeah, and we didn't know
Speaker 2: where it was. It took ages. We had to hunt
Speaker 2: it down on the internet, you know, back in the
Speaker 2: days when you unplug the phone and wait for the
Speaker 2: dial up. And eventually my mum found it. And it's
Speaker 2: this little little town right up top, right in the north,
Speaker 2: on the edge of this fjord. And I was thinking,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I can't get further away from home
Speaker 2: than this. My dad's saying, you know, any further and
Speaker 2: you're starting to come back home again. And eventually, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's where I was sent. But I mean, I
Speaker 2: knew so little about it. It was I knew it
Speaker 2: was a fishing village, and that's all I knew. So
Speaker 2: I imagined it would be close to the sea, but
Speaker 2: I had no idea what to expect.
Speaker 1: Any So we've heard what happened when you landed. We've
Speaker 1: heard what You've got to finally find someone in Raka
Speaker 1: because who knows you and he expects you. Then you
Speaker 1: head off to your host's family. Now i've seen the
Speaker 1: description of your host family. You're pretty brave when it
Speaker 1: comes to discussing people's.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I feel like that's the prerogative of
Speaker 2: the novelist and the memoirrist, I guess, but you know, well.
Speaker 1: There's another segment here. Well, where is it? I've made
Speaker 1: a note of it. One day, I'm sheltering from the
Speaker 1: rain and the shed of k the woman who takes
Speaker 1: care of me and my sister after school. Kay is
Speaker 1: one of the first truly mean people I've ever met, loath, seminiar,
Speaker 1: open contempt for children, and who refusal to allow us
Speaker 1: the sanctuary of her warm living room when it's raining.
Speaker 1: Kay might still be alive, she's reading, she.
Speaker 2: Might be She's had a name change, so she might
Speaker 2: know who she is, but no one else.
Speaker 1: Oh that's not a real name.
Speaker 2: No, And I made sure to do that because lots
Speaker 2: of people who have their real names in there. I
Speaker 2: was able to contact and I told them what I
Speaker 2: was doing and asked for their permission. But people who
Speaker 2: I'm no longer in touch with, you know, as you
Speaker 2: can imagine, Kay and I are not exactly best of friends, and.
Speaker 1: I just not weld she might.
Speaker 2: She might, but I stand by it. One of the
Speaker 2: wonderful things in writing this memoir was that I had
Speaker 2: a huge amount of diaries and notebooks and letters and
Speaker 2: emails home. So whenever I felt like, oh this, you know,
Speaker 2: this is not necessarily unkind because there's always grounds for it,
Speaker 2: it was always something that I had in record, you know,
Speaker 2: I could corroborate. I guess I didn't want to, you know,
Speaker 2: say things that maybe I might later doubt. So everything,
Speaker 2: you know, all the all the sort of nuances of
Speaker 2: these particular kinds of relationships are absolutely true.
Speaker 1: So your first host family wasn't particularly welcoming, No, I was.
Speaker 2: It was quite an extraordinary thing I hadn't had. I
Speaker 2: had had an experience when I was traveling to Iceland
Speaker 2: of landing in Ansterdam. One of my stop over cities
Speaker 2: and seeing a rotary exchange student't be greeted by their
Speaker 2: host family. You know, there were balloons and there was
Speaker 2: a big sign and they're welcoming them and give them
Speaker 2: a big hug. And I remember thinking, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 2: looks great. I'm looking forward to this. And then when
Speaker 2: I finally you know, I didn't I have that same
Speaker 2: reception at the airport. And then when I took this
Speaker 2: little tiny plane up to sow the Crocker and it
Speaker 2: was dark again, I couldn't even see what this town
Speaker 2: looked like. And they were there. They remembered me, but
Speaker 2: they were incredibly reserved. And I remember almost immediately thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: if I already made you know, a cultural faux pas
Speaker 2: here and they, you know, if I'd done something to
Speaker 2: annoy them, because they were so silent. And then when
Speaker 2: we finally pulled up at their house, their son was there.
Speaker 2: He was their sort of lenning against the doorway, and
Speaker 2: I was introduced to him. You know, this is kind
Speaker 2: of that. I think he was about eighteen years old,
Speaker 2: so just a touch a touch older than me, and
Speaker 2: he didn't say a thing. He just turned around and
Speaker 2: went back inside. And I remember I turned to my
Speaker 2: host father. I said, oh, can he speak English? And
Speaker 2: he was like, oh, yes, very well. I thought, oh again,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what's going on, and he didn't speak
Speaker 2: to me. I don't think the entire time that I
Speaker 2: was there. So even now I'm a bit curious as
Speaker 2: to what might have been going on with that family,
Speaker 2: because they were an incredibly silent family. Initially I thought
Speaker 2: it was just with me, but then I realized it
Speaker 2: was also amongst one another, you know, in themselves. They
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time apart, and as an adult
Speaker 2: looking back, I think, oh, you know, they probably had
Speaker 2: They probably weren't in a good position to take on
Speaker 2: an exchange student at the time, being seventeen, I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: what have I done? You know, this is something this
Speaker 2: is on me. I'm not extroverted enough, or I don't know,
Speaker 2: not learning the language fast enough. But I've since spoken
Speaker 2: to many people within that community who have said, oh no,
Speaker 2: I think I think they had their own issues. I
Speaker 2: think they probably shouldn't have just had an exchange student.
Speaker 1: What's it like frontic up at school the next day?
Speaker 1: You can't speak icelanding some of them they speak English.
Speaker 1: But were you confident or your nervously. What's going through
Speaker 1: your mind?
Speaker 2: I was incredibly nervous. Yeah, I sort of landed on
Speaker 2: the weekend and then I was told I knew I
Speaker 2: would have to go to school. That was a requirement
Speaker 2: of the exchange, even though I'd finished in Australia and
Speaker 2: I thought there'd be a few more days to settle in.
Speaker 2: But the now on Monday, I was told. You know,
Speaker 2: by that stage, i'd seen a little bit of the town.
Speaker 2: It was very small. There was this bright orange building
Speaker 2: sort of on the side of a hill, and that
Speaker 2: was pointed to me out That was pointed to me
Speaker 2: as the school, and they said, okay, Monday morning, your
Speaker 2: first class starts at eight. Off you go. Here's the timetable.
Speaker 2: So I'm there walking through the dark and the star
Speaker 2: school in the ice. Yeah, and you know, at some
Speaker 2: point I hear this cracking. I'm like, what's that noise?
Speaker 2: Then I realized I'm walking on a body of water
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize, and it's cracking under my weight.
Speaker 2: So I'm scurrying over to the side and it's when
Speaker 2: it's dark, and I finally get into this school and
Speaker 2: it's incredibly different from Hayfield. You know, no one wears shoes,
Speaker 2: they wear socks inside, and it's comparably very modern. It
Speaker 2: feels more like a university in some ways. And I
Speaker 2: eventually find the room number that's on my timetable and
Speaker 2: I sit there. I don't even know. I can't even
Speaker 2: read the Icelandic to know what kind of class it is.
Speaker 2: I realized it, you know, advanced mathematics, not exactly my
Speaker 2: strong suit, let alone when you have to learn it
Speaker 2: in Icelandic. And I just remember sitting there thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: I've landed in it. I don't know how I'm going
Speaker 2: to get through this year. Were you still I think? So? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like my family are very resilient.
Speaker 2: They are resilient people. And even though I was, you know,
Speaker 2: quite shy, I think I really thought, no, no, this
Speaker 2: is a year where I'm going to make something of it,
Speaker 2: and I know it'll be challenging. But I think I
Speaker 2: always felt like I had that great love and supporting
Speaker 2: my family that could anchor me. So so that's what
Speaker 2: I did. I tried to make a go of it
Speaker 2: at school. School they were friendly. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure what to expect. And it's interesting now looking
Speaker 2: back with a great love and appreciation of Icelandic culture
Speaker 2: and Icelanders. They have this wonderful thing where they're very
Speaker 2: what some people misinterpret as coldness is actually can be
Speaker 2: of just a deep respect for people's privacy and you know,
Speaker 2: things will emerge in time, and I'm not going to
Speaker 2: go do this very extroverted thing and introduce myself. It's
Speaker 2: more like, you know, we'll give people their space. And
Speaker 2: this was also a very small town where everyone, you know,
Speaker 2: friendships groups were basically set from preschool, so it was
Speaker 2: quite hard to enter into it. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of those early months, probably the first six months
Speaker 2: of my exchange, was me realizing that I would have
Speaker 2: to find other ways of belonging than simply just being.
Speaker 1: There physically, and how did you do that?
Speaker 2: I think it came about in two ways. There was
Speaker 2: one point during my exchange early on, about three months
Speaker 2: in where this host family, the ones who didn't really
Speaker 2: speak the hostad came into my room and he said,
Speaker 2: all right, we're going and I was like, no idea where?
Speaker 2: All right, sure, I'll come along, and he takes me
Speaker 2: down to sort of the industrial part of the town
Speaker 2: near the ocean, and I'm thinking, where are we going.
Speaker 2: There's no one, no one's here, it's pitch black snow.
Speaker 2: He gets like oh. He pulls up. He's like, okay,
Speaker 2: you have to get out. He leads me up the
Speaker 2: stairs of this warehouse and I can hear people speaking
Speaker 2: in the top. He opens the door. They all turn
Speaker 2: around and stare at me, and I'm thinking what is
Speaker 2: going on? And then I hear him say okay, i'll
Speaker 2: pick you up in two hours, and Lee leaves and
Speaker 2: I'm there standing in this room with all these people
Speaker 2: walking at me, and I had to sort of say, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm Hannah. Can you do you mind telling me?
Speaker 2: You know who you all are and what you're doing?
Speaker 2: And then a woman comes over and she was like, oh, no, okay,
Speaker 2: I think I understand what's going on. You're the exchange student,
Speaker 2: because everyone knew who I was, even if they didn't
Speaker 2: talk to me. I was like yeah. She's like, okay,
Speaker 2: so we're the local theater company and we're rehearsing this
Speaker 2: play and I think you're a host that I think
Speaker 2: he thought because you're like drama that you maybe could
Speaker 2: be part of the play, but you don't speak Icelandic,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh no, sorry, you know, I'm learning
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and like just kind of look at
Speaker 2: each other and then they go off and confer. I
Speaker 2: can hear them talking amongst one another, and eventually they
Speaker 2: come back and she's like, okay, so we can would
Speaker 2: you like to be She's searching for the English word
Speaker 2: and eventually goes, would you like to be our slave? Now,
Speaker 2: at this stage, everything's so awkward. I just yes, I'll
Speaker 2: do anything, I'll participate in any means. And then she says,
Speaker 2: because we really need somebody to, you know, mop up
Speaker 2: the blood. And I'm just go what what is going on?
Speaker 2: And then eventually, through you know, very you know, some
Speaker 2: translation and some miming and across the language barrier, I
Speaker 2: realized that this play is about six people who are
Speaker 2: murdered on stage and then finish the play as ghosts.
Speaker 2: And that's comedy, would you believe? And they need someone hilarious,
Speaker 2: They need someone to mop up the blood from when
Speaker 2: everyone dies on stage. So that's that's how I started learning.
Speaker 2: I was learning by doing that.
Speaker 1: Hannah Kent is my guest folks, Always Home, Always Home.
Speaker 1: Seeker Memoir is her book. It's not her first book.
Speaker 1: That first book has created an enormous interest. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll get to it. I'm just not sure when back.
Speaker 1: Shortly walking back, everybody, now look, if you just tuned in,
Speaker 1: we're chatting with Hannah Kent. Hannah Kent's a local writer
Speaker 1: and I'm ashamed that I didn't realize Hannah's fame before
Speaker 1: I read a review on the Weekend Australia. We're talking
Speaker 1: about her book, Always Home, Always Home, s going to
Speaker 1: look It starts basically, even though we talked about her
Speaker 1: early days growing up in the Adelaide Hills. But she
Speaker 1: goes as an exchange student to Iceland and then it's
Speaker 1: an adventure, an adventure which forms the basis of her
Speaker 1: first novel, which isn't the memoir. But I'm still fascinated
Speaker 1: how she integrates into society. But she's introduced into a
Speaker 1: drama group where she can't speak Icelandic, they can't speak English.
Speaker 1: But that was the icebreaker, wasn't.
Speaker 2: That was the icebreaker? Once I agreed to be their
Speaker 2: props girl, I realized pretty quick smart that I would
Speaker 2: need to be able to understand what I was hearing
Speaker 2: with what was in the script. So I started learning
Speaker 2: Icelandic like a mad thing, just to be able to
Speaker 2: do my job at the theater.
Speaker 1: How hard is that? One? It's French and Italian. We
Speaker 1: can Spanish, we can probably we've heard a bit before,
Speaker 1: We've never heard Icelandic.
Speaker 2: I was pretty studious by that stage. ID started making
Speaker 2: a few friends at school, and there was one girl
Speaker 2: in particular who started to stop buy and help me
Speaker 2: translate it. And around this time too, I actually changed
Speaker 2: host families. I moved to a completely different family, you know.
Speaker 2: The first one very quiet. Everyone was an adult. Second family,
Speaker 2: pretty young couple, and they had four kids under ten.
Speaker 2: And these kids, I mean, the elder speaker spoke a
Speaker 2: little bit of English, but the rest didn't. And so I,
Speaker 2: you know, just being surrounded by their chatter and they're
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, not complicated Icelandic, it was wonderful.
Speaker 2: I just felt so completely embraced by this family, and
Speaker 2: I really wanted to speak with the kids. And I
Speaker 2: had a one year old who was learning too, so
Speaker 2: for a while we learned at the same pace, you know.
Speaker 2: But that's really what changed.
Speaker 1: Are you really fluent now?
Speaker 2: I'm super rusty because, as you might imagine. I don't
Speaker 2: get many opportunities to practice, you know, over here, But
Speaker 2: I spent about two or three days in Icelandic comes
Speaker 2: flooding back, and I dream still in Icelandic sometimes really,
Speaker 2: and I'm always more fluent than I am in my
Speaker 2: waking hours too, so I know it's there somewhere. It's
Speaker 2: just a matter of, you know, tapping those neural pathways.
Speaker 1: We're going to have to jump ahead of it because
Speaker 1: your first novel, Burial Rights, was based on the story
Speaker 1: of an Icelandic farm girl who was beheaded, executed, accused
Speaker 1: and convicted of murdering the farmer.
Speaker 2: Yes and yeah. Another man who was at the farm
Speaker 2: as a guest for the name.
Speaker 1: Well, how did you come across the I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and Agnes.
Speaker 2: Almost Agnes Magnus Dott. What's her name?
Speaker 1: I have no chance of saying, So how did you
Speaker 1: come across this story of Agnes let's call.
Speaker 2: I had lots of incredible stories when I was in Iceland.
Speaker 2: It's an amazingly storied country. And I remember one day
Speaker 2: I was driving being driven down south to Recuvik along
Speaker 2: the Ring Road, and we went we're still in the
Speaker 2: north and we went through around this corner and we
Speaker 2: entered this sort of valley country and there was this
Speaker 2: extraordinary sort of mouth, valley mouth, just filled with hundreds
Speaker 2: and almost thousands of tiny hills and it, you know,
Speaker 2: it looked weird. I've never seen anything. Hell oh, probably
Speaker 2: as big as a standard ceiling, maybe some of them smaller,
Speaker 2: various sizes. They looked. I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 2: I thought they mounds, but you know, some of them
Speaker 2: you got to really climb up. And then I thought, well,
Speaker 2: are they Viking Perial Mounds? And I remember asking the
Speaker 2: people I was with, and they said, no, this is
Speaker 2: they were caused by an avalanche hundreds of years ago.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting you mentioned this place. And they pointed
Speaker 2: to three of the hills set apart from the others,
Speaker 2: and they said, well, over there is the sight of
Speaker 2: Iceland's last execution. And then throughout the rest of my exchange,
Speaker 2: I kept hearing about this woman, Agnes Magnus Dotty, who
Speaker 2: was in her early thirties when she was beheaded, and
Speaker 2: I was so curious about her, and everything that I
Speaker 2: heard didn't really seem to satisfy that curiosity. I started
Speaker 2: dreaming about her. She was someone who was often spoken
Speaker 2: of in you know, kind of stereotz as a stereotype.
Speaker 2: She was spoken to someone who was sort of you know,
Speaker 2: evil or bad, and that's why she'd done what she
Speaker 2: had done. But when I tried to ask about her
Speaker 2: early life, for her circumstances, I could find very little.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, I really don't think anyone
Speaker 2: is all good or all bad. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: so maybe some there's probably, but I think most people,
Speaker 2: you know, we're often the most people often with the
Speaker 2: you know, we're formed by our circumstances, and we're shaped
Speaker 2: by the times and the places that we lived in,
Speaker 2: and sometimes we do terribly bad things. But I was
Speaker 2: interested in the ambiguity. I think I was interested in
Speaker 2: her humanity and I couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: But you eventually did. I mean, I read about the
Speaker 1: research that you did to try and find about what
Speaker 1: you could about Agnes. You must have been at some
Speaker 1: stage frustrated to the point where it's too hard. You
Speaker 1: described as historical fiction, where there's the framework is other facts,
Speaker 1: but the fiction is the narrative around the facts. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you know the vocabulary of the or the language. But
Speaker 1: tell tell us about some of the research that you
Speaker 1: eventually did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't. I mean when I went home from Iceland,
Speaker 2: I had made up my mind to write that was
Speaker 2: something that Iceland helped me realized, and so I went
Speaker 2: to Universe and did that. But it wasn't until I
Speaker 2: finished my undergraduate degree that I thought I would write
Speaker 2: a book about this woman. And the reason was really
Speaker 2: because I kept dreaming about her. I kept writing poetry
Speaker 2: which I realized was in her voice. But by the
Speaker 2: time I was doing my thesis, I thought, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I need to write about her. And I realized, even
Speaker 2: though I knew Iceland, I didn't know nineteenth century Iceland.
Speaker 2: So I knew I had to research that world and
Speaker 2: what it was like back then, and I knew I
Speaker 2: needed to research her life. And I did as much
Speaker 2: as I could from Australia. But eventually I got a
Speaker 2: grant to go over to Iceland, where I was able
Speaker 2: to go to the National Archive.
Speaker 1: So this is part of your thesis, yes, your PhD.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by this stage, yes, And so I had an
Speaker 2: incredible time. Really, I managed to find her as a
Speaker 2: six year old in a census, and I managed to
Speaker 2: find poetry that she had written. I realized that she
Speaker 2: was born illegitimate, which was quite a significant crime back
Speaker 2: then and really sort of limited her opportunities. She was
Speaker 2: someone who would have been laboring from about that age
Speaker 2: as well. And I started to get this real picture
Speaker 2: of a woman who even the people who absolutely hated
Speaker 2: her and who thought that she was completely responsible for
Speaker 2: this crime, was totally evil, had planted out. Even they
Speaker 2: spoke about her intelligence and often as reason of that's
Speaker 2: why she did it, but they also spoke about her
Speaker 2: love of literature. And I started to get this sense
Speaker 2: that there was more to the story and that the
Speaker 2: versions that had been told of it were very much
Speaker 2: skewed in terms of their prejudice and bias, And yeah,
Speaker 2: a whole the other different stories started to emerge. It
Speaker 2: was fascinating.
Speaker 1: It was difficult finding researching it. Tell us about that
Speaker 1: there was a moment where you were presented with a book.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: That's such a coincidence.
Speaker 2: That the whole process was just completely riddled with extraordinary coincidences.
Speaker 2: I before I had gone to Iceland, once I knew
Speaker 2: I got the funding, I had a list of things
Speaker 2: I wanted to access there, and one of them was
Speaker 2: a book, and I could see that it had a
Speaker 2: whole chapter about Agnes, which was more than anything I
Speaker 2: had found. And then when I got to Iceland, I
Speaker 2: went to all the libraries where I knew it would be.
Speaker 2: First one they couldn't find it on the shelf, second
Speaker 2: one they said, no, we've never had it. Third one
Speaker 2: apparently had been burned in a fire. At any rate,
Speaker 2: I couldn't find a single one, and I was really disappointed,
Speaker 2: so I had to go back to the primary sources.
Speaker 2: But eventually, after I'd spent ages in all the archives
Speaker 2: and I had all this info, I thought, well, I
Speaker 2: want to go somewhere pretty isolated and I just want
Speaker 2: to sit with it and work out how I'm going to,
Speaker 2: you know, build the fiction into it, how I'm going
Speaker 2: to turn it into a novel. And I found a
Speaker 2: hostel right in the middle of nowhere on the Vatsnas
Speaker 2: Peninsula in the north and when I got there it
Speaker 2: was I realized it was a dairy and a barley farm,
Speaker 2: and the farmer just rented out an old barn for
Speaker 2: people in the summer. But this wasn't somewher this was autumn.
Speaker 2: And he comes up to me and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: do you mind me asking you know what brings you
Speaker 2: at here? I was like, oh, well, I'm writing the book.
Speaker 2: You see, I'm writing. Have you heard of Agnes Maactus
Speaker 2: dot here? And he sort of takes a step back
Speaker 2: and gives me a strange look and thinks, yeah, I've
Speaker 2: heard of her. So you're writing a book, that's what
Speaker 2: you're here for. And next minute they put me in
Speaker 2: a little summer cabin and his mom's like dragging a
Speaker 2: desk from their actual house so I can write out
Speaker 2: so accommodating, so welcoming and generous. And then later that
Speaker 2: night I get a knock on the door of the
Speaker 2: cabin and it's k the farmer, and he says, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry to interrupt you. I know that you're you
Speaker 2: have to write the book, but I was thinking about
Speaker 2: you know, you're writing about Agnes Magnustott, and they thought
Speaker 2: maybe you might like to read this. And he gives
Speaker 2: me a copy of the book that I've been looking for,
Speaker 2: and not only that, he tells me that he'd never
Speaker 2: read it before until the week prior. So when I
Speaker 2: show up in the middle of the blue and say
Speaker 2: that I'm writing about Agnes Magnustot it. It was an
Speaker 2: incredible coincidence for him as well.
Speaker 1: So you write the book, you see the spot where
Speaker 1: Agnes is beheaded, you see the ax that was used
Speaker 1: to be head. As gruesome as that sounds, they retrieve
Speaker 1: her bones, do they not. Yeah.
Speaker 2: She was buried at the site after the execution and
Speaker 2: the heads were set on stakes. Their heads disappeared in
Speaker 2: the night, and everyone thought that a local farm woman
Speaker 2: had arranged for them to be buried in consecrated ground.
Speaker 2: But the bodies were just buried, so no one knew
Speaker 2: where they were. And then about one hundred years later
Speaker 2: there's an extraordinary, extraordinary circumstances of happening. Another coincidence, Another coincidence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a psychic, a woman who actually was very secretive about
Speaker 2: her psychic abilities. She was a housewife in Reykovik started writing,
Speaker 2: you know, automatic writing where you just can't it's not
Speaker 2: your voice, what's coming out in the page. And she
Speaker 2: realized that it was the voice of this woman Agnos
Speaker 2: Magnes did she shouldn't do anything about it. I think
Speaker 2: it kind of spooked to her. But it went on
Speaker 2: for three years and the voice was becoming increasingly insistent,
Speaker 2: saying I want my bones moved to consecrated ground. And
Speaker 2: so eventually she contacted someone and said, look, you know,
Speaker 2: this is what's been happening, and I think maybe we
Speaker 2: should move the bones. And he said, yeah, well I'm
Speaker 2: not quite sure if it's true, but we probably should
Speaker 2: move the bones. That's probably a good thing to do.
Speaker 2: But the problem is no one knew where they were.
Speaker 2: No one knew where they were buried. There was no
Speaker 2: record whatsoever. And so the psychic said, well, I'll ask Agnes,
Speaker 2: and so she comes back with these directions based on
Speaker 2: you know, physical locations and where the sun comes up,
Speaker 2: and she says in the Agnes in the voice of
Speaker 2: the psychic, says, go to this farm up north and
Speaker 2: look for a man called Magnus, and he'll help you.
Speaker 2: He'll prove to be a good searcher. And she also says,
Speaker 2: by the way, the heads aren't in thingate our churchyard
Speaker 2: there at the site, and I still have a piece
Speaker 2: of the steak in my skull. Anyway, it's very it's
Speaker 2: very spooky, very gruesome. But the man goes up north,
Speaker 2: he finds a man called Magnus at this farm. Didn't
Speaker 2: think there would.
Speaker 1: Be don't tell me he finds the heads.
Speaker 2: They find the heads within fifteen minutes following these times,
Speaker 2: I believe. And there's ten centimeters of wood inside one
Speaker 2: of the skulls.
Speaker 1: Hallah Cant is my guest, Folks. That's part of a
Speaker 1: book of burial Rights. But her memoirs called Always Home,
Speaker 1: Always Homesick, talks about that, of course in there will
Speaker 1: come back and talk about the first novel she writes
Speaker 1: and the funeral that it creates. Back shortly, folks. My
Speaker 1: guest on conversations is Hannah Kent, who's a local who
Speaker 1: grew up in the Adelaide Hills, went to Heathfield High
Speaker 1: and is now a world famous author. Her memoir is
Speaker 1: called Always Home, Always Homesick. But if you just tuned in,
Speaker 1: she didn't exchange rotary exchange to in Iceland and became
Speaker 1: fascinated with this story about the young farm girl who
Speaker 1: was executed after being found guilty of murdering a farmer
Speaker 1: and I guess a farm hand, but had a fascinated
Speaker 1: Hannah to the point where she had to write about it,
Speaker 1: and her first book, Burial Rights, is the story of
Speaker 1: I can't even say the surname Hannah An Thank you Hannah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so you get all this story, So you wrote your
Speaker 1: complete your thesis based on this narrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never ended up submitting my my my entire thesis,
Speaker 2: so you know, I can't call myself doctor. But I
Speaker 2: did finish the book as part of that thesis.
Speaker 1: So how did it come to be a novel?
Speaker 2: Well? I am once I finished writing it. You know,
Speaker 2: it was incredibly emotional experience. I always thought that when
Speaker 2: I'd finished my first book, i'd be celebrating, you know,
Speaker 2: a glass of bubbles. I wept. I wept as soon
Speaker 2: as I finished this story. By that stage, I was
Speaker 2: so invested in the lives of these characters and in
Speaker 2: this particular story that I think I went through a
Speaker 2: period of grief. I remember I printed out the Man No,
Speaker 2: I think, I'm not sure. I think it was just
Speaker 2: because I realized how sad so much of this story was,
Speaker 2: and I had really experienced it, you know, obviously vicariously,
Speaker 2: but emotionally. I'd been in that place, and so I
Speaker 2: printed it out and I put it under my desk
Speaker 2: and I didn't do anything with it until one of
Speaker 2: my one of my lecturers and a friend said to me,
Speaker 2: you know there's a local competition, unpublished Manuscript award you
Speaker 2: should enter, And I said that she was one of them.
Speaker 2: Eight root Starkey incredible, incredible support and guide to me.
Speaker 2: This was another friend who suggested Kylie Cardell, who still
Speaker 2: works at Flinders, and she suggested to me, you should
Speaker 2: enter this award now unpublished manuscript, unpublished manuscript award.
Speaker 1: So you send it off in what form? Like, just
Speaker 1: a type of form.
Speaker 2: I spent a week cutting about twenty thousand words, mostly adjectives,
Speaker 2: and then I sent it off about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Writers scared of adjectives.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not scared of them. I think I just
Speaker 2: used too many. Honestly, what's wrong with adjectives? I love adjectives.
Speaker 2: I already I already had too many in there. About
Speaker 2: just choosing the best ones, I think. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: send it off and yeah, next thing I know, I
Speaker 2: got a call saying that I'd won.
Speaker 1: And then there's a there's a publishing war for your
Speaker 1: for the rights to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was completely unexpected. As a result of winning
Speaker 2: the publishing competition, I got a literary agent and she
Speaker 2: sent it out and then very soon after that it
Speaker 2: leaked overseas to you know, similar companies, similar publishing companies,
Speaker 2: and people started offering rights, and my agent said, look,
Speaker 2: I know it would be really tempting to say yes,
Speaker 2: but we're going to say no. We're going to wait
Speaker 2: and see what people come up with. And eventually, yeah,
Speaker 2: eventually it kind of went everywhere. It was publishing right,
Speaker 2: publishing rights. Yeah, it turned into a bit of a
Speaker 2: bidding war, and I got to meet with a lot
Speaker 2: of different publishers, and eventually I met Alex Craig Picket
Speaker 2: or Australia, who I think really understood it and ended
Speaker 2: up being published here and in the UK and US simultaneously.
Speaker 1: What's going through your mind when all was this happening.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just a continuous pinch me moment. You know.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe my examiners and my mum would read it.
Speaker 2: I had no idea this was going to happen. I
Speaker 2: never thought that it would be published, so it was
Speaker 2: an extraordinary It was an extraordinary time for me.
Speaker 1: Did you have a real job before then?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know. I've always had about six different jobs.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I've worked as an editor, and as a teaching assistant
Speaker 2: and as a as a tutor. I've you know, my
Speaker 2: first job was in a butcher's, so you know, I've
Speaker 2: been working since I was fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Just did that.
Speaker 2: They needed some little hands, you know, skin chickens. So
Speaker 2: I've worked in all sorts of places, but this was
Speaker 2: probably the moment where I thought, oh wow, I'm going
Speaker 2: to I signed a two book deal, so I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: I can probably have a crack at this writing caper.
Speaker 2: Now I can see how far I can take it.
Speaker 1: Do I give you advances on your books? I mean
Speaker 1: we read the stories of the writer gets the advances
Speaker 1: and he's stuck with writing block and he's under pressure
Speaker 1: to reproduce because he's already received the money. It is
Speaker 1: a bit like that.
Speaker 2: I think they can be true, particularly for nonfiction, maybe
Speaker 2: for some other genres. I think I think for literary
Speaker 2: fiction and a lot of fiction, they just want you
Speaker 2: to come up with the goods first. Then they'll offer
Speaker 2: you an advance and would you have to earn out
Speaker 2: through sales.
Speaker 1: There was an article in the Financial Review about the
Speaker 1: sort of money that was being offered to Did that
Speaker 1: take you by surprise?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I think the average
Speaker 2: income for a writer in Australia. Back then it was
Speaker 2: even less, but now it's about eighteen thousand dollars. And
Speaker 2: so when I saw how much people were offering, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I should be able to get away with
Speaker 2: this for a little while.
Speaker 1: Yet. Have the movie rights been Yeah.
Speaker 2: Movie right's the soul. They were sold pretty early on
Speaker 2: before the book came out, and now they're still with
Speaker 2: Sony and I just actually quite recently heard some news
Speaker 2: about that. So you know, there's been the writers' strike
Speaker 2: and COVID and whatnot. It's been delayed for a bunch
Speaker 2: of different reasons, and I understand these things take time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, hopefully, hopefully we'll see something in the next year.
Speaker 1: But there's other There's been a couple of other books
Speaker 1: they have. Have they been just as successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have. Nothing's been quite as mad as Burial Rights.
Speaker 2: And I think you know that being a debut to
Speaker 2: felt particularly significant. But I've been very very fortunate, I
Speaker 2: think here in Australia to have very loyal and faithful readers.
Speaker 2: I'm very very lucky to still be able to write
Speaker 2: a lot of the time. You know, occasionally I'll take
Speaker 2: on other work and jobs. But yeah, I get to
Speaker 2: spend a lot of my time writing, which has always
Speaker 2: been the dream.
Speaker 1: What's the Run Rabbit Run story? I mean, I know
Speaker 1: never saw a novel called Run Rabbit Run, but you
Speaker 1: were obviously involved in the screenplay of that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there was who was going to play the lead role
Speaker 1: and ended up being serious nuke. Did you have any
Speaker 1: saying who plays who? No?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't get any casting. Yeah, this was probably so.
Speaker 2: My two other novels are The Good People in Devotion
Speaker 2: and I Think Good People. The Good People had just
Speaker 2: come out and I was approached by these two producers
Speaker 2: Carver Films that they made. They'd made Snowtown, which I
Speaker 2: had seen, and they said, you know, we think you're
Speaker 2: writing has a visual sensibility. Would you be interested in
Speaker 2: maybe writing for screen one day? And I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that'd be great. I'd love to try that. Love the
Speaker 2: challenge and how to go And over time we sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, developed this this contemporary film, the sort of
Speaker 2: psychological drama, and it ended up being made. And yes,
Speaker 2: Sarah did us the great honor of playing the lead.
Speaker 2: She was amazing.
Speaker 1: What sort of influence does the screenplay writer have a
Speaker 1: on a movie.
Speaker 2: Well, I was very lucky in that I was able
Speaker 2: to be involved from the very early stages. So in
Speaker 2: terms of story quite a lot. And then Dana Read,
Speaker 2: a tremendous Australian director, probably most recently well known for
Speaker 2: The Handmaid's Tale. She came on board and she would
Speaker 2: give me direction and then I would incorporate it, so
Speaker 2: she'd be you know, we need another beat here, or
Speaker 2: I'm a bit unsure about here, so you go away
Speaker 2: and you do your thing. So she put a lot
Speaker 2: of faith in me as a writer in terms of
Speaker 2: the story and the characters, so that was great. But
Speaker 2: in terms of all the you know, the logistics, that's
Speaker 2: that's the producers, in terms of how it's shot, that's
Speaker 2: you know, the cinematographer and the director of photography, that's
Speaker 2: the that's the director. So you're part of a big team.
Speaker 1: How's the how's your memoir been received? It's been out
Speaker 1: for months or sign out? Has it been amazing?
Speaker 2: It's been incredible. I was really nervous about it because
Speaker 2: you know, it's different to what I normally do, and
Speaker 2: you know things can be interesting to you in your
Speaker 2: own life, but you're not sure if they're going to
Speaker 2: be interesting to other people. But I've just been I've
Speaker 2: just come back from Melbourne Writer's Festival and just had
Speaker 2: the most wonderful reception I think people have, you know,
Speaker 2: received it really warmly, and it's made me realize too
Speaker 2: that one thing that I love about fiction that you
Speaker 2: can see so much of your own life and your
Speaker 2: own experiences in it. That happens too with memoir. So
Speaker 2: I've been incredibly I'm kind of yeah, I'm a bit
Speaker 2: dumbfounded and very grateful with the way it's been received,
Speaker 2: which has been overwhelmingly positive.
Speaker 1: Well, that leads to an obvious question, how much of
Speaker 1: fiction is based on your own life?
Speaker 2: Well, I used to think very little, you know, certainly
Speaker 2: until this point where the memoir is very much my
Speaker 2: own life. But I mean, one of the reasons I
Speaker 2: loved writing fiction was a chance to sort of leave
Speaker 2: my own life behind and be interested in other people.
Speaker 2: But it's funny how things sneak in, and I find
Speaker 2: that even if I think there's nothing of myself or
Speaker 2: my life in my books, I often have friends or
Speaker 2: even family be like, oh, I know, I know that
Speaker 2: that happened, and you've sort of you know, snuck that
Speaker 2: into your novel, and I think, oh, my gosh, so
Speaker 2: I did so. I think it's quite an unconscious thing.
Speaker 2: But of course, you know, everything you write is limited
Speaker 2: by the way that you see the world and your
Speaker 2: own frame of reference.
Speaker 1: What's been your mom and dad's reaction to this? You
Speaker 1: found fame?
Speaker 2: Oh, they're they're so great. They keep me grounded. I'd
Speaker 2: really never wake up and think, oh, I'm famous. I
Speaker 2: still don't think I do I ever do that. But no,
Speaker 2: they're they're incredibly supportive. I think I feel very, very
Speaker 2: lucky and I and I think I can credit them
Speaker 2: a great deal with my writing career, just from them
Speaker 2: recognizing so earlier that it was important to me and
Speaker 2: encouraging me. And also they're, you know, just the support
Speaker 2: the way that they've you know, taken me back in
Speaker 2: when I've been broke and let me write at home,
Speaker 2: to reading early drafts. They're they're amazing. And I have
Speaker 2: a wonderful sister too, my little sister. I couldn't I
Speaker 2: couldn't ask for a better family.
Speaker 1: Do they critique yourself?
Speaker 2: I don't think they dare.
Speaker 1: Honestly, You've got two young kids, I do how do
Speaker 1: you handle all of that.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, it's I used to be really disciplined.
Speaker 2: I don't used to like get up, goes straight to
Speaker 2: the computer, write uninterrupted. And of course with little children,
Speaker 2: you've you know, you're caring for them, and you continually interrupted.
Speaker 2: So it's taken me a while to get used to
Speaker 2: writing with that. But I love it, and I love
Speaker 2: I love the way that they're now old enough to
Speaker 2: find their names and the acknowledgments and to be excited
Speaker 2: for me. And they're both actually, funnily enough, coinciding with
Speaker 2: this book coming out, they've both released their own books,
Speaker 2: which we've also had to have little family publication parties
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: So it's very kidding, well hand, it's a great story.
Speaker 1: Well done with your success. I promise to recognize all
Speaker 1: the good things you've done rather than be surprised by them.
Speaker 1: So I hope your book goes really well for you.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it will so much.
Speaker 2: Come and see. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Hannah Canned was my guest, folks. Her book is called
Speaker 1: Always Home, Always Homesick, a memoir. It is a picadoor publication.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us,