WEBVTT - Read This: Josephine Rowe Isn’t Interested In Efficiency 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:00.720 Hello again. 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.440 It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to share another episode 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.280 of Read This, Schwartz Media's weekly books podcast, hosted by 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.040 editor of Monthly Michael Williams. It features conversations with some 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.440 of the most talented writers from Australia and around the world. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:19.079 In this episode, Michael is chatting with Australian writer Josephine Rowe. 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:23.720 As always, Michael is here to tell me a little 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:28.680 bit more about the episode and Michael. Ruby Jones Hello, So, Michael, 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.360 As a podcast host myself, I know that there is 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.880 something really special about learning the guests of the show 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.160 actually listen to it regularly, and I believe you had 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.280 that experience with your guest Josephine Rowe. 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.159 Yes, I'd like to think Ruby, it's more than just vanity. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.520 You know, there is something very nice when someone comes 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.479 in to do the show and they're already a listener, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.240 but there's this added element to it with writers, because 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.760 we know that writing is such a kind of solitary 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.920 pursuit that in many ways writers are doomed to labor 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.279 on their own until the end when they finally get 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.640 to come out and talk about it. And the idea 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.480 that a writer and in the case of this week's guest, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.360 a writer of the caliber of Josephine Rowe is listening 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.080 to Read This and finding stuff in it that resonates 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:18.560 for her creatively, intellectually, emotionally, is a very rewarding thing. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.640 The first episode where she had that experience with Read 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.600 This was when we had on as a guest, the 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:30.560 singular Gerald Manaine, and Gerald tells a story about how 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.399 his creative process works and compares it to looking out 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.080 at a line of trees in the middle distance. And 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.680 while listening to this, Josephine Rowe was working in her 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.880 own house in coastal Victoria, and she had more or 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.440 less the literal embodiment of that experience. She was looking 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.160 out at a similar kind of horizon, a similar set 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.880 of distant trees. And to me, there's something really lovely 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.280 about the fact of two different writers, different experiences, different 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.360 points of their career, but somehow in communion with each 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.600 other look out of a similar rows of trees, both 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.240 literal and figurative. That seems nice to me. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.400 That's really special. So onto Josephine and her latest novel, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.880 Little World. Can you tell me a bit about it? 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.320 Yeah, Little world's actually only. Josephine rose second novel, her Verse, 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.160 was called A Loving, Faithful Animal, and it was long 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.880 listed for the Miles Franklin Award back in twenty seventeen. 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:26.079 It was described in The New York Times as gorgeous 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.640 and having precise language, and that really does sum up 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.720 Josephine Roe's particular gift. In between, she also published a 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.480 collection of short stories similarly. Gorgeous Little World is a 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.799 small book, a slender volume, as publishers like to say, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.320 but as with all of rose writing, it's much deeper 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.119 and denser than its limited page count might have you expect. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.040 At the center of it is the story of a saint, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.040 a young girl we don't know what age she is, 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.880 whose body remains incorruptible and whose mind remains conscious. And 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.200 the story stretches across continents and eras from the nineteen 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.960 fifties to the present day. There's a retired engineer who 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.720 unwittingly becomes a custodian, a woman driving across the Nullibor 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.080 in the mid seventies, and then at all the ends 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:18.000 in contemporary Victoria with COVID lockdown, Josephine wrote, is just 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.280 so kind of thoughtful and sharply intelligent, and her books 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.320 demonstrate the ways in which she is an author who 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.480 is acutely aware of the traditions into which she's writing, 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.320 but also at the same time she's someone who is 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.800 resolutely carving out her own imaginary landscape. And it was 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:37.040 a treat to talk to her. 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.920 Coming up In just a moment, Josephine wrote, isn't interested 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:44.880 in efficiency. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.960 I didn't intend to write this book. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:54.800 Necessarily. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.360 I had to write this book so that I could 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.880 get back to writing the book that I was meant 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.560 to be writing. And I think at this particular time 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.680 in my life, where it was sort of late thirties, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.119 I felt like i'd sort of maybe most people, most 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.520 writers feel this between books, you just completely drop off 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.039 the map. Unless your book is a raging success. You 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.360 kind of dip in and out of obscurity. And I 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.560 think that's really fertile and important. So that plus being 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.520 kind of late thirties and I was very transient, kind 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:29.599 of moving around a lot. Nobody knew where I was living, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.400 and I was kind of like, nobody's looking quick, nobody's looking. 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.520 You can do whatever you want, and I didn't. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:41.520 Actually there were central images in this book that were 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:46.400 just so resident that I had to had to kind 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.279 of follow through them. But I didn't expect to be 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:54.039 writing about leprosy colonies in Naaru and Panama and termite 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.760 mounds and you know, and all of these other wild 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.600 places I was to and I did not expect it 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:04.440 necessarily to be published. 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:05.960 And that wasn't even the point. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.479 It's nice to me that it wasn't the point. And 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:10.760 it's nice to me that you're liberated by the idea 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.040 that no one's watching, so you're allowed, almost as a 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.120 permission thing, you're allowed to do it. Does that suggest 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.840 that this kind of writing, when you're doing it, feels 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:21.479 like an indulgence. 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.960 Which is not to say that it was easy. It 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.839 took a long time. I tend to put things down 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.040 for a while, put them in the third raw, let them, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.240 let them kind of mature a bit. And I'm a 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.200 kind of ruthless condenser. So it's, you know, a very 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.359 short novel, but it feels a bit. I hope it 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.120 feels a bit like it's eaten a larger novel, because 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.440 that's pretty much the breadth of it in terms of writing. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.000 Maybe on some level, writing always feels like an indulgence. 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.560 It is an amazing thing to be able to kind 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.800 of make any sort of livelihood of It's something that 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.520 feels so necessary to you as a form of expression, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.080 to be both the means and the end. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.839 So that relationship between that idea of necessity and the 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.200 idea of doubt. Do you remember for you the moment 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.800 if there was such a moment when you developed the 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.920 muscle of self belief where you were like, this is 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.440 worth pursuing. This is a thing that I am going 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:25.880 to do, regardless of the doubt. 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.480 I guess I started writing quite young, and started publishing 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.520 quite young, and before that there was music. I was 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.560 in bands a lot in my teens and early twenties 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.680 and was writing as well, And there was a point 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.839 where I suppose I felt well, partly, I was surrounded 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:50.000 by brilliant musicians who really spoke music as a first language, 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.920 and I did not have that background. And perhaps it's 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:59.200 easier to feel conviction being a self taught inverted commas writer, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.640 and it is to feel conviction being a self taught musician. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.400 I don't know if that's true. That was true of 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.760 me maybe, or maybe it was just in terms of 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.760 the people I was in relation to and making music with, 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.520 who I saw as being far, far more talented and 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.920 natural in that than I was. I do love music, 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.440 and I sing and while a lot, but I don't 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.720 write music anymore. There was a point where music sort 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.800 of took the backseat, and then it got out of 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:29.880 the car al together and I just really focused on. 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:32.280 Words. 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.640 So the idea that perhaps amongst musicians you felt it 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.160 wasn't your native tongue or your native form in the 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:41.880 same way it was for some of the people you 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.920 revered when you made that move from music to the 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.360 written word. Were there traditions you found you wanted to 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.320 belong to. Were their writers you found yourself as a 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.320 young writer trying to emulate before you found your own voice. 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.960 Oh who do I? 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:05.120 I feel is like deep in the fabric, you know, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.440 when somebody asks your favorite book and you kind of 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:09.360 like reach back to the favorite books that have been 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.920 your favorite books for twenty twenty five years. But coming 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.600 through Slaughter by Michael and Datcha is a big one 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.200 for me. And again that sort of that conviction to 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.880 start a book with Dolphin Sonar to write about this life. 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.120 You know, the early nineteen hundreds Corner Player in Your 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.320 Orleans that you have a handful of facts about and 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.920 then just to that kind of like wonderful, fragmentary, illuminative 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:43.120 narrative that he builds from that. And that was a 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.120 book that I read with like, oh, you can do anything, you. 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:46.560 Just have to. 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.880 I can so see that in your work, sincerely, and 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.280 in that thing of One of the feelings that I 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.800 most am seeking out is that feeling you get of 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.160 I didn't know you could do that. You know, that 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.680 idea that they somehow a license somehow. What's happening with 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.120 the form, what's happening with the sentence on the line 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.840 is confounding my expectations. And the older I git the 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.360 more I read, the rarer it is to get that 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.880 thing of the surprise of the possible. 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.120 Yeah, I think that's writing it. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:17.960 It's best as well when you kind of come to 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:19.679 that junctuary like, well, I didn't. 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.240 Know I could do that? Am I allowed to do that? 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.640 And you have to sort of turn off that critic 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:29.960 that is kind of policing what is permissible. Maybe sometimes 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.160 I think that that term to give permission or to 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.720 take permission is kind of problematic. Because if I think 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.120 for myself, if I was waiting for permission, I would 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.480 never have become a writer. I just don't come from 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.959 that sort of background. I was raised by libraries. I 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.840 would be nowhere without libraries. I grew up in the 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.240 outer Eastern suburbs in a commission house. There were not 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:52.560 a lot of books in the house. There was not 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.080 a lot of money for books, but there was, you know, 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.640 the Country Gully Library where I was taking out Leonard 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.240 Cohen poems from the age of about you know, thirteen 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.599 or something like that. And then that sort of trajectory 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.280 to twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two being on a 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.080 research fellowship at the New York Public Library, which is 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.319 I used to get tiery walking into the New York 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.040 Public Library, just the idea this is for everyone, and 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.800 that it's just a great equalizer. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.560 Do you a linear writer? I mean you described this 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.880 as a small book that has swallowed a big book. 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.520 Do you do you write and then cut down? Do 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.880 you write in fragments and then work out how they 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:33.360 fit together? Is it a combination? 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:38.640 I think anybody who was at all interested in efficiency 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.240 would be horrified by the way that I write. I 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.480 write longhand a lot. I think there's just part of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.320 my brain that completely shuts down if I'm looking at 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:48.920 a laptop, So I try to leave it out of 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.920 the process for as long as possible. But you know, 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.400 I do think that all of the best thoughts happen 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.199 on the back of an envelope or a piece of 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:03.480 scrap paper. Hotels stationary Gold. Literally think there was a 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.640 hotel notebook from a while ago that it's felt like 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.640 every every time I wrote something onto that particular notebook, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.559 it was like a little midas like it turned into 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.959 it bloomed into an idea. Actually, a lot of little 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.280 world was kind of written on that particular hotel station. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:22.520 Are you superstitious? 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.640 Yeah, very sorry. 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.360 I was just picking up the vibe from several of 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:26.840 your answers. 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.400 I think I think I inherited that from my mother. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:31.480 Was she superstitious? 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.679 She was very superstitious. Absolutely. 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.000 Did she apply that superstition to kind of the way 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.600 she lived her life or did it constrain the way 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:42.400 she lived her life? 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:43.200 Mmm? 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.600 I would say it did constrain in some ways. But 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.800 she did have a certain sort of spookiness about her 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.520 as well, in terms of like knowing what you were thinking. 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.360 Maybe that's just do. 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.600 You think writers have to have that slight spookiness about them, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.360 like that idea that there are forces beyond their control 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.480 that they are trying to harm s rather than I've had. 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.840 That conversation with Rodney Hall actually about these, you know, 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.280 the sort of coincidences that you are dealt and then 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.840 you can choose to do something with or not, but 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.079 you don't really have a choice. You have to kind 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:23.720 of follow them through. I don't know if spookiness affects 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.000 writers anymore so than anybody else. Maybe writers are just 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.000 the people who are kind. 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.560 Of like, I'll take an idea wherever I can get 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.000 I'll take direction wherever I can get it. Let's let's 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:33.480 go with this. 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:35.480 You do hear it though from writers all the time 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.600 is Oh, that character developed a life of their own, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:39.840 and I was surprised to see what happened on the page. 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.000 And you know, I looked up out of a few 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.920 sat and I had twenty thousand words or whatever. That 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.400 idea is the idea that creativity and belief in the 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.640 book have to rely on a kind of more things 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:55.440 in heaven and earth. 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:56.360 Yeah. 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.480 Yeah, well then I think with most, with most are forms, 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.439 I think an artist would say, you know, the best 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.800 experience of making anything is that feeling of being a conduit, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.400 that you're not entirely at the wheel, or you're at 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.800 the wheel, but you're not you know, you're not necessarily 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:16.360 in charge. 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.680 When we come back, Josephine shares how her relationship with 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.600 saints began and the one thing she can't live without. 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:26.400 We'll be right back. 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.160 The very first image. And it doesn't spoil it because 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.880 it is the first image. That's the image that opens 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.480 the book, in the first couple of pages, is a 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.560 man standing in the Australian desert waiting to receive the 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.080 body of a child's saint, or who he has been 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:02.319 told as a child saint, delivered by horse float somewhere 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:07.320 in like mid twentieth century. That's that's what I had 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.680 a very I'm quite a visual writer, and that that 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.760 was the image that found me sometime in twenty eighteen. 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:18.760 I actually like flipped back to my notebooks because I 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:24.880 can't exactly pass how we get from there to Naaruru 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:25.920 and leprosy. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.760 And I think I was thinking a lot about about. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:39.160 Naru, about what would make a nation amenable to how 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:43.680 Australia has used it to. Even the term offshore processing 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:50.080 is such a bloodless, cruel, dehumanizing term. But what makes 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.000 a nation so desperate for revenue that that is the 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:59.920 industry that they are open to. And so I got 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.040 very interested in Naru's past in terms of phosphate mining 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.920 and I kind of deep dived on that and in 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.560 terms of those unintentional echoes. I went to you know, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.440 Broom and north of Broom for the first time, and 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:19.520 that landscape just absolutely fused with this with this opening image, 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:26.000 I can't remember which came first, and even the kind 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.840 of visual of termite mounds and how those recall the 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:36.200 pinnacles of limestone that are left over from gouging for 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.600 a phosphate and what top side looks like on Naru. 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.560 Now that was not an intentional visual echo, but that 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.480 is kind of I think aspects of that reoccurred all 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.560 through the book. Things that I didn't set out to 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.960 kind of mirror or to recall, they just happened that way. 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.480 So that was that was the opening image. I wrote 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.120 the first section of the book, which is said in 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.240 the nineteen fifties in the Kimberley and kind of reaches 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.960 back to Naaru in about the nineteen thirties of leading 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:16.320 up to the Second World War. 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:19.520 And I wrote the final. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:23.160 Part of the book, which is set in an unnamed 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:28.520 central Victorian town at the outset of the coronavirus, and 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.800 I had an idea of what the sort of middle 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.160 section would be, but it did take a long time 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.360 to write, partly because that middle section, which is a 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:46.840 bit of a extended fever dream or screenwriting friend told 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.560 me the term vast desert, like the second act being 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.320 a vast desert, and it's from the perspective of the 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.040 driver and she has not slept for a long time, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.440 and Mattils is the name of the protagonist in that 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.000 section of the book. She is pretty much where I 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.960 channeled all of my own insomnia or I wanted to 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:15.560 do something with that particular state of mind where you're 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.399 so tired that it really does affect your perception and 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.359 it feels like the edges of things kind of start 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.399 to break down. And that is like a really great 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.680 state to be reading Spinosa in, because you're just kind 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.320 of like, oh, there's no there's no me, there's no youth, 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:33.600 there's not even us. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.200 There's just this. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.000 I've got to say, I'm very impressed with the idea 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.320 that insomnia might be a generative state. That's never been 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.320 my experience. Tell me, what role does emotion play for 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:46.200 you when you're right? 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.879 I think I'm somebody whose emotions are quite close to 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.960 the surface in lots of ways, or at least it 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.120 feels that way, to the extent that maybe I kind 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.399 of I'm careful of what I let show it this 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.080 offa sometimes I don't know, maybe we're getting into the 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:10.000 weirds a bit here, but I think I'm often trying 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:14.080 to kind of find the root cause or the root 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.320 causes for yeah, forefeeling. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.480 So what about then, through the lens of someone like 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.560 Matilda and a conception of a character like that giving 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.560 her self knowledge, giving her the language to describe what 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.639 she's grappling with? Yes, how much do you want to 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.439 give that over to your character? And how much do 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.920 you accept that as unspoken or at least assumed. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.960 Yeah, sure, I mean I think something that I hope 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:46.879 I am getting better at is allowing characters to not 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:54.040 be articulate, to not have infinite self knowledge. I think 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.840 there's an awful lot that Matilde can't bear to look 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:02.640 at or even name about her experience, you know, violences, 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:08.520 harms that she has simply just completely disconnected from as 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:15.920 a survival mechanism. And I think what were allowed through 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.720 the sort of semi omniscient view of this other character 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.840 who's who i'll refer to as a maybe saint, is 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:29.280 kind of insight around those things Matilda hides from herself 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.240 were back in her past somewhere. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.040 Tell me about that maybe saint, and tell me about 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.359 your relationship with saints as an idea. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:45.320 Yeah, I think that the first intimation of a saint 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:51.040 that was interesting to me was in Lenard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.959 I read it at fifteen, and I tried to reread 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:58.080 it recently, and it is I had to stop after 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.679 a certain point, but there's a there's a saint in 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:03.960 that book that I, you know, later in life. I 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.680 was really interested in it. It's an caterrat to cock 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.560 with her, who's an indigenous saint or a First Nation saint. 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:17.120 She was called the Lily of the Mohawks. And I 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.040 was just kind of curious and kind of repulsed about 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:26.120 what goes into sainthood, I suppose, And in this case, 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.720 it was you know, on death she turned white, which 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.040 is troubling in itself, and that all her small pox 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.439 scars disappeared. Well, I was like, oh, okay, and it's like, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:44.359 for whose sake is that? It's forgiveness, it's atonement for 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.919 you know, for things that maybe oughtn't be given. And 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.359 I guess traveling through Europe and kind of walking into 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:57.359 churches cathedrals where where saints will often be just laid 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.520 out and displayed. In the case of this, I'm going 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.879 to call her a maybe saint. Her body is not 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.720 broken down, so she's kind of like arrested between this 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.960 world and whatever comes after, but her consciousness is still intact. 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:14.639 I think I had an idea of that when I 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.600 sat out writing the book, but at the start I 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.159 didn't realize that she was going to be such a 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.760 strong voice in the book. Again, it was kind of like, oh, 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:24.879 I didn't know. I didn't know I. 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:26.760 Could do that. Okay, oh wait, we go. 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.920 I Actually I was kind of ashamed of myself and 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.160 afterwards because I was like, well, of course she has 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.200 like she has to have autonomy of some kind, even 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.680 if it's like rage, even if it's interior because otherwise 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:44.280 she's a girl in a box that stands for what 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.280 other people have decided she stands for and represents. And 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.080 so yeah, I became integral that she have a person 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:55.040 who had a history. 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:57.880 That makes a lot of sense. That is not if 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.639 it's not an offensive parallel, that's not income system with 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.639 the way. In interviews in the past, you talked about 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.879 the responsibility of depicting animals in your work, that if 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.840 they were only there as a symbol of something rather 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.840 than as a living being, that somehow you were doing 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:15.359 them an injustice. Yeah. 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.760 Absolutely, I think maybe it just comes down to I'm 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:24.880 not especially interested in human beings as a superior species, 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:30.080 and definitely no kind of person as being superior to another, 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.200 and maybe no narrative or story as being We have 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:38.119 like an attachment to particular narrative arcs of people who overcome, 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.240 and that you know, people are strong. We consider characters 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.280 strong or their lives meaningful only if they sort of 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.280 tick these boxes and if there is a positive change, 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:51.560 and otherwise is the story not worth telling? Is the 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.800 person less vulnerable if they don't overcome, if they just endure. 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:01.080 I think I've always been interested in telling those stories 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:06.360 from the margins. But even that word is wrong because 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.560 it's like the word remote, remote to where, marginal to whom? Yeah, 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:12.280 you know, they're the center of their own life. 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.760 Yeah, No, that resisting the idea of the kind of 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:21.000 dominant or normal narrative. Is that resistance an active act 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:22.760 for you when you write? Or do you find that 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:28.359 the sense of kind of creative fulfillment organically comes from 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:31.160