WEBVTT - Read This: Chris Flynn’s New Book Arrived in a Dream 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.559 Hey there, it's Daniel James and I'm here to share 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:06.800 another episode I've Read This, Schwartz Media's weekly books podcast, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.760 hosted by editor of the Monthly Michael Williams. It features 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.560 conversations with some of the most talented writers from Australia 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.720 and around the world. On this episode, Michael sits down 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:22.480 with Irish born Australian based writer Chris Flynn. As always, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.120 Michael is here to tell us a little bit more 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:25.240 about the episode. 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.280 Hello, Michael, Daniel James. What a pleasure. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.200 So in this week's episode of Read This, you've got 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.919 another Irish author on the show. But Chris Flinn has 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.800 actually been calling Australia home for quite some time now, 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.559 and he began his literary career here. How did you 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:40.600 first come across his work? 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.560 Yeah, Chris Flynn's writing first came on to my radar 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.240 in a past life. I was working in publishing as 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.360 a kind of junior editorial assistant, reading manuscripts and trying 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.640 to translate having an opinion about what I read into 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.800 some kind of career path. Crazy, I know. But one 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.120 of those manuscripts was one that came in from a 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.280 first time writer and it was about a young guy 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.800 from Belfast on the run who finds himself in Thailand. 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.760 And it was a kind of raucous, crazy, comedic kaper thing, 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.759 and it was unmistakably talented. It was one of those 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:14.560 ones where you read the manuscript and you think, oh, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.800 this person is a natural writer. The writer, of course, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.640 was Chris Flynn, and the manuscript did go on to 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.000 eventually become his first book, A Tiger and Eden. He's 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.440 written a few books now, probably most notably A twenty 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.080 twenty's Mammoth. But he's a writer who is known for 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.640 slightly outlandish, slightly unpredictable, kind of twisty turning stuff. He 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.760 had another book of short stories called He'd be Leviathan's 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.960 and his books are always very funny, kind of slightly dark, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.520 maybe genre adjacent. He's a really talented voice. 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:47.480 Michael's it writer. 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.760 You actually wrote about Christ's latest novel, Orpheus nine for 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.800 one of your many secret side hustles. What was it 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.800 the Cornus mag Tell me about that experience on one 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.200 of the book's premise might scare off son read but shouldn't. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.360 Yes, being opinionated about what I read continues to be 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.640 the through line of what I do, Daniel, And one 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.560 of those side hustles is, as you say, writing for 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.120 the Quantus in Flight magazine, which is a strange thing, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.160 but I get to recommend books that I've read, and 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.240 for the first time since I've been doing that job, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.200 I sent in a review of Chris Flynn's new book, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.640 Orvius nine, and the editor came back and very politely said, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.720 could you choose a different book? This one sounds too 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:30.440 scary for the people who are going to be on 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.240 our flights. In the end, I just rewrote the review 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:34.920 in a way that she was kind of happy with. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.360 But I thought about that a lot, because the premise 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.720 of Chris's new book is pretty horrifying. On a day 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.160 during an under twelves football match, every nine year old 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.399 in the field suddenly starts chanting a line from King 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.320 Lear in Latin, and then they die horribly and gruesomely. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.280 And it's a global phenomenon. Every nine year old around 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.360 the planet has died suddenly in the same sterious circumstances, 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.760 and almost worse than that, after that, any day another 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.160 kid turns nine, that kid dies at the age of 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:10.520 nine in the same gruesome way. This is a kind 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.000 of Stephen King esque setup. It's horrifying but kind of 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.400 very compelling and part of what I love so much 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.000 about this book, and you'll hear in this conversation is 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:25.600 that Chris focuses at this global, even supernatural phenomenon, focuses 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.320 it on a small town in Australia and on three 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.040 former school friends, each of whom are hit by the 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.160 phenomenon in different ways. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.400 Coming up in just a moment, Chris Flynn's new book 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.440 arrived in a dream. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.520 My own questions, you seems self evident. Who hurt you, 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.920 Chris Flynn. 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:56.280 On, No one hurt me. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:57.760 Were you bullied as a nine year old? 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.080 I was relentlessly bullied as a child because I was skinny, 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:03.880 milinky long legs, as my mum used to call me. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.960 She said, I've seen better legs hanging out of a 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:06.520 bird's nest. 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:08.200 That's right. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:09.720 That's a hard one to come back from. And my 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.120 dad was a former bodybuilder, so I was the weakling 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.279 who's constantly abused for not being able to lift huge 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.600 fence posts that he could lift with one hand. But 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.440 I have nothing against kids personally. I grew up in 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.680 a foster family in that my mom and Dad were 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:29.960 foster parents when I was in my early teens and 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.640 my sister was four years younger than me, and so 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.599 throughout my teenage years we had kids in the house, 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.760 over one hundred little kids, all young. They're all seized 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.720 by the social services for various reasons, sometimes for a 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.919 few weeks, sometimes months, and a couple of cases we 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:47.640 had them for years. So I had all these little 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.279 brothers and sisters, and my sister and I were pseudo parents. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:53.680 In fact, we'd often walk around the housing estate in 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.040 Belfast pushing the buggy and people would assume we were 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.520 the mum and dad because of so many teenage pregnancies 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.640 of these kids, and we were horrified, or we would 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.200 sometimes say no, no, we're brother and sister, which would freak 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:04.760 people out them. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.240 That's very reassuring, that's what you want to hear about 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:08.200 those teen parents. 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.520 That's right, we're brother and sister. On top of that, 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.760 So I sort of grew up being a parent to 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.000 absolutely loads of little brothers and sisters. But I mean, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.560 the beautiful thing about fostering is that you're giving them stability, 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.320 and then the kids move on. They either would go 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.520 back to their natural parents who sometimes would have dependency issues, 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.400 and we're sorting them some things ourselves out so they'd 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.160 get the kids back, or they'd move on to an 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.960 adoptive family. And the thing was you were never allowed 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.520 to see them ever again, or have any contact with 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.719 them whatsoever. If you saw them in the shopping center, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:45.760 you were told. My mom and dad were told walk 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.479 the other way. And partly it's for the good of 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.120 the kids, because they don't want to introduce confusion into 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.440 their lives, like who who are you? Why do you 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.120 know me? You know, you assume that they'll just forget you. 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.480 But there's a sadness to that too, and I had 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.160 never really processed that. I don't think very well. And 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.560 I think part of the reason behind this book was that, 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:07.760 for some reason it just came up. My sister and 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.479 I never had kids of our own, and we always wonder, 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.000 is it because some sort of paternal instinct or maternal 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.920 instinct was satisfied in us, something some switch was flipped 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.520 and we never felt compelled. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.279 To or you associated it with an impermanence as well, 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.760 like that you know that you invest in it, it's 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.279 an important thing in your life, but it's not something 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.680 that you then hold on to It's not an ongoing thing. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.320 Could be. Yeah, yeah, and we obviously obviously all those 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.839 kids are now in their forties. I don't know what 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.839 happened to them. Some of them will be alive, some 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.839 not probably, But they don't know me, Yeah, they don't. 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:44.839 They probably don't remember that I was a figure in 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.320 their lives. But I wonder if maybe one of the 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.719 reasons behind this book subconsciously was me trying to sort 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.520 of because all those kids, they might as well be 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.600 dead to me, you know, and this this book my 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.480 way of sort of coping with that. I don't know. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.960 If it's a coping mechanism, it's a deeply unhealthy one. 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.520 And I suggest you get some therapy, That's all I'll say. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.320 I mean, the reason I start there is that when 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.760 the advanced reading copy of this book arrived, the publisher 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.160 basically sold it in the advanced reading copy as Chris 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:23.920 Flynn was standing at a kid's football game and basically 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:24.600 had a vision. 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.320 Yes, So what happened to me was I drove myself 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.679 seven thousand kilometers around Australia, staying in murder motels, visiting 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.880 over one hundred book shops and I wanted to do 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.000 it because it was twenty twenty two and I hadn't 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:38.800 got to do that with Mammoth, which is twenty twenty 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.600 because everything was locked down and it was an adventure. 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:44.840 But when I got back, the last thing I wanted 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.280 to think about was books are writing. I got home, Okay, 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.040 I don't want to be bothered with this, and I 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.400 had a dream like a few days later in which 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.760 that opening scene of the book is exactly what happened. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.280 In my dream. I was standing there alongside these parents 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.200 I live in a small original time, and I was 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.920 there on the footy ground watching it all happen. And 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.080 when I got up the next morning, I brought it 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.440 down and it's the opening scene in the book almost 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.000 forbid him as like as it happened in my dream. 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:16.440 And then over the next hour, the rest of it 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.200 all just appeared. And so the whole book was there, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.480 right to the ending, right from the beginning, and I thought, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.120 oh bloody hell, now I'm going to have to write 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:25.720 the freaking thing, you know. And it was the start 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.200 of the summer. I was intending to take some time off, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.560 and I ended up just giving up my summer to 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.320 set on my computer, it down watches. This thing appeared 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.480 before my eyes, so who knows where that came from. 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.880 You do something that I particularly love, and I think 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.920 it's what makes the book work as well as it does, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:50.080 which is you take this kind of speculative, fantastical premise 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.160 that has global ramifications, but then you write about it 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.560 in an intensely local way rather than canvas and here's 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.880 how it's rolling out in Paris and Tokyo and New 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.120 York and whatever. You bring it right in and you 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.000 go very small and very intimate, kind of essentially with 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:13.120 three protagonists who are all relating to this global tragedy 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.440 in their own different ways, and a town called Gatton, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.720 which is kind of seven and a half thousand people 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.839 small population was the town? I mean, are you just 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.440 writing about where you live? And it's thinly veiled and 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.640 every nasty person in the book is one of your 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:28.920 neighbors A little bit. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.400 I have to be careful so I don't get hung 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.520 drawn and quartered. I tend to not reveal the time 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:36.560 that I live in so that. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.479 I nearly said it that and be nice mikel Vernon. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:42.960 But obviously if I'm speaking to anyone local, no, no, No, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.920 it's clearly somewhere else, some horrible place in Queensland that's 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.880 got nothing to do with where I live, but the 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.440 general framework of the town is very similar to where 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.599 I live. Yeah, the local thing I think is important 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.160 for this kind of story. I'm not a big fan 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.440 of those sort of part glyps books where it's like 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:04.920 we've got to get on the cargo plane and fly 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.560 to Paris next and to talk to a scientist and 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.760 then he sends us to you know, Cape time like boring, 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.439 Like how on earth can a person relate to that? 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.080 And it just seemed a very relatable story from the beginning, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.600 a very intimate story from the beginning. And although the 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.320 premise it's a premise heavy book, but the premises, as 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.480 you say, has got o of the way at the beginning, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.199 and then it's very focused on a local level on 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.160 how people respond to your disaster because it all happened 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:32.880 to us, all right, you know, there was a global 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.880 disaster and we all had to deal with it in 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.320 our own very localized way because we were actually trapped 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.400 in our own homes. To that sort of degree, in 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.839 your neighbors, the street you were in, you became very 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.000 intimate with that, so it made sense to approach it 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:47.000 in those terms. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:51.400 Thinking in particular as a Melbourne based person who went 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.120 through the COVID lockdowns here in many ways as the 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.319 beats of a pandemic novel that actually, if you take 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.160 away the more fantastical elements and you take away some 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.840 of the more kind of overt body horror stuff, what 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.360 you have at the heart is a society that's assumptions 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.600 about itself and how it operates irretrievably fractured and trying 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.560 to find some version of normalcy after that. And in particular, 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:20.640 the relationship with Salt is very reminiscent of many of 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.920 the responses to COVID and the anti vaxx crowd and 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.880 that kind of thing. Were you aware of it as 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.760 a kind of COVID allegory or is that just something 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.679 that's easy to impose on it afterwards? 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.880 It was imposed a little bit as I went along. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.920 I'm not so interested in COVID as I am in 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.480 Hope people's opinions. Everyone's got an opinion about everything. Now 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.760 we're expected to be experts on all matters, matters of science, 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.400 matters of medicine, everything, And I don't know if that's 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.280 a bit of a layover from COVID, where suddenly we 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.480 all become very opinionated and experts, but of course none 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.400 of us are experts in anything, and so I think 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.880 that's what frustated in me more about the COVID thing 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.959 was all of a sudden, everyone's a scientist. All of 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.920 a sudden, everyone's choosing to believe certain things they read 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.800 on the Internet whilst ignoring other things because it suits 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.640 their personal narrative, or it's they're a coping mechanism. And 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.400 that became the focus of the book was how you 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.840 can have neighbors, friends who know each other, who are 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.760 suddenly because of something that happens, all sent in various 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.880 different directions, all believe certain things, and all believe they're correct, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.480 whereas they're probably all partially correct but also partially wrong, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.800 but not wanting to listen to what the other person's 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:36.560 point of view might be. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.160 Part of how that rolls out, then, in the context of 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.880 Olpheus nine, is that the overlay of those neighborly disagreements 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.800 in the face of something bigger than themselves is all 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.440 the history and baggage and stories that are not bigger 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.320 than themselves. That are the ways in which they have 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.199 come up together in this town. They have had romances 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.040 and let each other down, and secrets and betrayals and 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.480 all that kind of stuff. How do you get the 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.719 stakes right in a book like this where you know 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.120 you're open with a cataclysmic thing. How do you find 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:15.400 the space for character staff for comedy, even when you're 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:16.840 killing off kids on page three? 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.360 Yeah? Yeah, well, the killing of kids thing will probably 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.200 put people off, but you sort of get past that, 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.080 and it probably will be a bit of an issue 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.560 for some people. They'll be put off by the idea 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.800 of it. And I certainly have parents of nine yearls 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.720 particularly who've said to me, I'm not reading this, whereas 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.800 other parents of nine yearls said, I'm definitely reading this 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.640 because my kid does my head in. But yeah, how 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.960 do you sort of get away from that? It's unavoidable 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:43.520 that I have to bring up the premise at the 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.360 beginning and set it up. Once people are past those 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.559 initial pages, I think they'll find something very different unfolding, 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.680 because I don't dwell on that. In fact, it's not 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.760 really mentioned at all after the initial incident. But yeah, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.000 how do you develop those characters. The characters were standing 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.800 next to me on the sideline, and it's sort of 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:03.600 you get this creepy feeling in the back of your 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:05.719 neck as an author whenever this happens, because you're like, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.720 that seems like quite a complete person there. Where did 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.239 they come from? Is that an aspect of my personality? 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.880 Is that sort of an amalgamation of people? I know? 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.200 Who is this this woman standing next to me that 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.080 suddenly I know everything about, including you know, her life 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.120 as a teenager. It's hard to pin down where that 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.520 comes from, but I guess that's kind of the juice 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.520 for me, is being presented with these characters wherever they're 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.960 coming from, and exploring them and not really knowing whether 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.240 anyone will care, but hoping that they do. But also 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.400 I love the idea of the premise sends people's lives 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.440 in a very specific direction. But no one is all 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.760 bad and no one is all good in this world, 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.880 And too often in fiction things are written in those 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.560 black and white terms, those binary terms, and that doesn't 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.480 please me, And so I saw an opportunity here. As 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.960 like these characters. You will like them at certain points 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.600 in the book, and other times you will not like them, 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:05.480 and then maybe you'll like them again because you will 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.960 understand whether made the choices that they've made. And so 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.320 it is basically a character study of these three characters 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.480 in the book. And that's probably going to also disappoint 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.280 some people because they'll think it's a sort of wombbamb 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.920 some pandemic book about there's been a disaster. You know, 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.120 when's the SWAT team coming in to sort all this out? 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.560 When we return, Chris explains why a sense of mystery 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.680 is so important to this book, and he shares the 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.080 Holy Trinity of books he grew up. We'll be right 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:55.280 back amongst the many mysteries in Orpheus nine. The reciting 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.560 of the passage from King Lear gives it an element 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.240 of the supernatural or the other worldly that takes it 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.920 from h oh, this could be a viral contagion, this 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:10.960 could be whatever to something truly freaky. Did you did 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.480 you have ideas about what that freakinness was? 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.600 So right from the beginning, I knew exactly what this was, 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.560 and I know how this happened, but I have not 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:25.080 revealed that in the book, and some might find that frustrating, 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.120 but really, early on, I'm not going to reveal why 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.760 this is happening, although I know why it's happening, partly 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.080 because you can only really disappoint by having a resolution 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.640 of people say oh it's aliens. Okay, Oh that's that's 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.800 a disappointment. You're only going to disappoint people, So I 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.280 chose to avoid the reveal. But you're right, there's also 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.520 that mysterious supernatural thing with the kids. Before they swell 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.680 up full of salt, they recite a passage from King 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.320 Lear in Latin, which introduces that creepiness to it where 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.920 you're like, there's no way they could know that, why 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.720 is that happening? So it gives that tension to the 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.000 narrow right from the beginning, where you're reminded periodically, Okay, 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.160 so we're dealing with people in a small town her 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.959 living with the aftermath of a disaster. They've got their 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.640 own problems to solve, but also there's this other thing 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.240 looming over them the whole time that no one's ever 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.240 really resolving either. And I think that just it gives 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.879 you a through line of the books that you don't 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.720 forget and you don't get bogged down in domestic politics. 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.439 You have this constant reminder that sort of eeriness that 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.879 casts a shadow over the whole book, And so that 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:37.560 was all done on purpose. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.159 And I think it's very effective because it means that 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.199 the dual impulses of the book pull in different directions. 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.960 It's a very grounded, very realistic book if you let 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.800 yourself forget what's led the characters to where they are. 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.080 Everything else about it is society in disarray, small town 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.720 worrying about kind of who's in charge. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.399 You know, they're getting top aware from big w you know, yeah. 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.080 Very domestic, very kind of grounded. Do you read a 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.119 lot of speculative fiction? Do you read a lot of 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.440 that kind of more fantastical stuff. 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.520 I sure do. In fact, I always did as a 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.880 young reader, and I moved away from it a little 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.840 bit and got into more literary world, you know, in 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.240 my sort of twenties and thirties. But I've gone back 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.919 to it, and I find a lot more satisfaction in 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:30.080 sort of speculative and sci fi light, fantasy light. I 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.320 love that sort of black mirror. Twilight Zone. I've seen 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.119 so many episodes of the Twilight Zone growing up, and 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.800 I think that probably influenced me more than I care 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:42.200 to acknowledge that idea that this is a very recognizable 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:47.679 world in this story, but there's something off and we 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:49.919 can't quite put our finger on what it is. But 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.679 we all know there's something off, and you know, you 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.399 could argue that that is our reality. You know, we 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.080 all live in a world where we think we have certitude, 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.200 but we don't really don't really know what's around the corner. 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.960 As we all learned a harsh lesson with COVID. We 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.040 never saw it coming and suddenly it affected us dramatically, 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:09.560 and none of us really know what lies around the 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.119 corner or where things. We live in an age of uncertainty, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.080 but we desperately yearned for certainty. So I think there's 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:18.720 there's a really interesting tension. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.480 There having an answer to what's happening in Orpheus nine, 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.720 and withholding that answer from your readers. Does that mean 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.840 it's conceivable there's a scenario where this is a world, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.359 or a context or a premise that you would return to, 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.720 Because it does seem to me that pick a different town, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.040 pick a major city, pick a different context in which 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.920 they're responding to the same thing, and there's endless stories 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:45.919 that may come out of that. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.480 What you're talking about is what I call the flu 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:54.800 the Flint literary universe. You know, good magic, where the 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.240 TV show comes out and then there's an offshoot show 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.720 set in another country from a different point of view. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.800 I've got the branded drinking mug, but otherwise I haven't 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:04.840 followed all the rest of it. 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.439 So because I know what happens, I have had a 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:14.000 completely bonker's, totally left field idea for a continuation of 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.960 the story that would drive people up the wall. But 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.320 I'll be tempted if this book does well. I mean, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:21.960 I've got a lot of few other things in the pipeline, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.160 but if this book does well, then I would consider 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.040 tackling that. It wouldn't be easy to do, and there'd 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.000 be a bit of a leap of faith people would 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.040 have to take with me, and people would probably be like, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.239 what the hell, what's happening now? 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.399 I can see in your eyes though, not only is 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.679 that not off putting to you, but I suspect that's 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.840 what gets you up out of bed and writing in 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:50.280 the morning is not easy. Confounding readers and making them 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.240 come and meet you halfway, and a sense of play. 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:54.720 They the things that get you going. 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.560 It totally is, and I've started to get into a 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.560