Speaker 1: The Beasting is one of my favorite novels of the
Speaker 1: past couple of years. When I picked it up, I
Speaker 1: found myself laughing aloud before I'd even got to the
Speaker 1: end of the first page, utterly transfixed by the teenaged
Speaker 1: voices of Cass Barnes and her toxic friend Elaine as
Speaker 1: they try to make sense of life in a small
Speaker 1: town in the Irish Midlands. I was unsurprised. I was
Speaker 1: already a big fan of author Paul Murray and his
Speaker 1: previous three novels, and I've come to expect the sharp dialogue,
Speaker 1: the fully realized human beings on the page, generous humor,
Speaker 1: and brutal insights. What I was maybe under prepared for
Speaker 1: was that some six hundred and fifty pages later, I
Speaker 1: would be utterly hollowed out by the tragedy of the
Speaker 1: whole thing, sad and anxious, not just for the characters
Speaker 1: and their fates, but for life and humanity in general.
Speaker 1: How is it that such a deeply pessimistic book can
Speaker 1: be funny and at times even uplifting.
Speaker 2: Pasimism quite attractives and I want ever read like a
Speaker 2: super pessimistic book, or see a super pessmist movie. It
Speaker 2: sort of resonates with me, but it's not something that
Speaker 2: I really believe in. I'm not someone who believes that
Speaker 2: people are that and you know the world is floot
Speaker 2: like that. That's not the way I see things.
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Williams and this is read this to show
Speaker 1: about the books we love and the stories behind. Paul
Speaker 1: Marray's last two novels, The brilliant Skippied Eyes, which was
Speaker 1: set in a boys' school, and the surreal The Mark
Speaker 1: and the Void, which was set in the world of banking,
Speaker 1: were both modern masterpieces of institutional failure, and for his
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three book, A shortlisted novel, The Beasting the
Speaker 1: Failing Institution, he turns his comedic eye to is the Family,
Speaker 1: in alternating chapters from the perspective of four different members.
Speaker 1: He follows the Barnes family and it's maybe more than
Speaker 1: anything else, the story of what happens when people who
Speaker 1: love each other can't talk to one another, can't share
Speaker 1: the truth or what they need or what they're going through.
Speaker 1: He writes kids and teenagers brilliantly well, and the relationship
Speaker 1: between parents and their children, the everyday failures of empathy
Speaker 1: and imagination, the cross generational incomprehension and disappointment run through
Speaker 1: every page of this book. So to kick things off,
Speaker 1: I asked Paul about his own parents and about how
Speaker 1: they might have influenced his work.
Speaker 2: My dad passed away a couple of months ago. He
Speaker 2: was a university professor here in Dublin. So the house
Speaker 2: is always full of books and that was the big
Speaker 2: sort of weekly family trip, would go to the local
Speaker 2: town and go to the laby and get more books.
Speaker 2: My dad really was uneasy about me writing, Like he
Speaker 2: was happy enough when I was just doing it as
Speaker 2: in school as homework, but then when I decided I
Speaker 2: wanted to do it like full time, he rarely said anything.
Speaker 2: But there was a famous occasion when I did a
Speaker 2: master's in grative writing in Norwich in the UK, when
Speaker 2: I spent twenty five and it was great because if
Speaker 2: it was a real sort of like life changing experience.
Speaker 2: But I remember coming back from that and moving back
Speaker 2: in with my parents, and I was out of money,
Speaker 2: you know, and he dragged me to the train station
Speaker 2: one day and he said, like, you've given it your
Speaker 2: best shot. It's time to just set it aside and
Speaker 2: get a real job. So like the next day I
Speaker 2: got it might have been that very nice. In fact,
Speaker 2: it was really weird, sort of serendipity. But I got
Speaker 2: an email from my tutor in Norwich, Alice Smith. She's
Speaker 2: a famous novelist, and she told her editor in Penguin
Speaker 2: about me, and he emailed me like saying, I'd love
Speaker 2: to see her, love to see your work. And I
Speaker 2: sent him to work and you know, he bought the book.
Speaker 2: So that that was a real that was a real moment.
Speaker 2: But my dad was always like he was still sending
Speaker 2: me like job advertisements, you know from the newspapers, saying,
Speaker 2: you know, things that I would like always do, like
Speaker 2: I would never be even qualified for. But he'd just
Speaker 2: be saying, you know, give it a shot, you know,
Speaker 2: give it a go. So he was like a very gentle,
Speaker 2: kind of courteous figure like he was. I'd always meet
Speaker 2: students ex students of his who would talk about like
Speaker 2: how how generous had been with them, like a very
Speaker 2: sort of like unshowy kind of a man. My mum
Speaker 2: was like sort of my mom's alive and she's she's
Speaker 2: a real firebrand. And she came from this sort of
Speaker 2: quite dark part of Ireland and she sort of retains
Speaker 2: that sense of, you know, the world as being this
Speaker 2: place of unfathomable darkness. You know, So any kind of
Speaker 2: situation you would put her in, she would find the
Speaker 2: you know, the seam of of like of of darkness
Speaker 2: in there. So I mean, like that's definitely part of
Speaker 2: me as a person and also part of the part
Speaker 2: of the writing too.
Speaker 1: I read an old interview with you where you talk
Speaker 1: about that thing when you become a parent and you
Speaker 1: realize the way in which everyone's just faking it, that
Speaker 1: you have to pretend authority because it's not an option
Speaker 1: to say I don't know, I'm making this up a
Speaker 1: site go along. And I think each stage of life,
Speaker 1: whether it's parenting, whether it's being an adult, whether it's
Speaker 1: old age and mortality, there is an extent to which
Speaker 1: you're expected to just do it well.
Speaker 2: Like I remember coming home when my son was born,
Speaker 2: coming home with the baby the first ninety seven hospital
Speaker 2: and the second dary had to prove you're at a
Speaker 2: car seat so you could take them out of the hospital.
Speaker 2: If you're at a car seat, so you could put
Speaker 2: them in a car. And that was the extent of
Speaker 2: proof that you needed that you were sort of an
Speaker 2: acceptable parent. And I remember like taking the car seats
Speaker 2: and putting it down on the kitchen table and thinking
Speaker 2: what now, Like what do you do? Because we had
Speaker 2: no like preparation, like no one tells you anything about
Speaker 2: how to raise a child, and the degree of improvisation
Speaker 2: was like very very surprising, you know, and it had
Speaker 2: even struck me. We didn't know what to do. We
Speaker 2: bought a lot of products. And I think that's a
Speaker 2: really interesting sort of twenty first century thing like it,
Speaker 2: because I find myself repeating it again and again, like
Speaker 2: in any sort of given situation, the first thing is like, well,
Speaker 2: go on Amazon and see like this, like like I'll
Speaker 2: buy these ten things, and that's how you do it,
Speaker 2: you know. And with my dad's death, like that was
Speaker 2: like a rare instance where like, you know, there's there's
Speaker 2: nothing available to you. You know, it's just you're just
Speaker 2: sort of in it and you just have to get
Speaker 2: through it. But with regard to parenting, like it was
Speaker 2: really I guess it was when when the kid gets
Speaker 2: older then and you have to sort of be the
Speaker 2: authority figure, and especially if you imagine yourself as an
Speaker 2: artist whose job it is to stand at the margins
Speaker 2: kind of sneer, the cigarette trooping from your lip, and
Speaker 2: just set of being throwing classes and stuff. You have
Speaker 2: to kind of reconfigure yourself as this person who's wagging
Speaker 2: their finger all the time and saying now, mind eys,
Speaker 2: excuse me, now, be careful of this and be careful,
Speaker 2: like the amount of times in my daily life that
Speaker 2: I would be saying no, now stop this, no, be
Speaker 2: careful and just hearing yourself just becoming this voice of
Speaker 2: like just restriction and limitation and just you know, repression.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, with like with my son, like when
Speaker 2: he complains about school and I have to go like, well,
Speaker 2: there's a reason, because if you don't go to school,
Speaker 2: you don't learn things, and you can't get a job,
Speaker 2: and you won't be able to get a mortgage, and
Speaker 2: you won't find a you know, a wife, whatever it
Speaker 2: might be. And I'm still like painting this picture of
Speaker 2: like the most sort of mainstream version of life that
Speaker 2: you can imagine. And the last book I wrote, like,
Speaker 2: so not the last book, but the book before the
Speaker 2: Skippy Dies was it was written before my son was born.
Speaker 2: But I was in my mid thirties and I already
Speaker 2: had a sense of this generational pretense or generational disguise,
Speaker 2: because people had gone to school with who again were
Speaker 2: people you would never trust to do anything like, you know,
Speaker 2: not even like sort of put up a shelf or
Speaker 2: dog sit, you know, whatever it might be. We're now
Speaker 2: still in positions where like the or being paid a
Speaker 2: lot of money to manage things, or to like to
Speaker 2: treat people who are very sick, or they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're putting positions of power and authority and trust. And
Speaker 2: that was quite a shock because when you met them
Speaker 2: they still seemed as unhinged as ever. And you start
Speaker 2: to realize that there's no point in your life where
Speaker 2: you sort of actually become You don't change into that
Speaker 2: kind of person. It's more than you sort of learned
Speaker 2: to behave in a certain way in certain situations. But
Speaker 2: the person you were doesn't fade out, like it's just
Speaker 2: that they're You just learn not to say the things
Speaker 2: that you want to say, the things you would say
Speaker 2: when you're fifteen. You go like, and even now when
Speaker 2: I'm doing, like, for instance, an interview, the fifteen year
Speaker 2: old pride of me'll be like, we'll have something to say,
Speaker 2: you know I've got a bit of delay now, or
Speaker 2: my brain will go like, don't say that, you know,
Speaker 2: that's not appropriate.
Speaker 1: I mean one of the things to stick with Skippy
Speaker 1: diyes for a second. One of the most beautiful things
Speaker 1: in that book is how deeply lived in an authentic
Speaker 1: the young voices are in It is that in a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old voice, Omnipresent does a line in.
Speaker 2: Like I think im Peter Pan talking about grown older
Speaker 2: and he says, it's the strangest thing to happen to
Speaker 2: a little boy, you know, And it's just this, at
Speaker 2: some level, we all feel this bewilderment at grown older
Speaker 2: and and the fact that certain ways of being are
Speaker 2: no longer available to us, you know. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't want to be a teenager by any stretch, but
Speaker 2: I wouldn't mind being thirty again, Like that would be great.
Speaker 2: So I guess, like in one regard, like I'm lucky
Speaker 2: enough to have like a good year certainly for teenage voices,
Speaker 2: but also the vulnerabilities are still there, and the desires
Speaker 2: are still there, and it's more just a sense of
Speaker 2: realism basically that creeps in that you realize that that
Speaker 2: that the romantic sort of illusions that I had when
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, And I guess that's that's what
Speaker 2: I associate most with being a teenager, is that just
Speaker 2: the all he's just just very romantic ideas of what
Speaker 2: love is like, and what life is like, and how
Speaker 2: sort of life unfalls like. Those are things that that
Speaker 2: are gone and I can't get back to, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to get back to. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want any teenager to not to have those,
Speaker 2: you know, like that, just that that sense that you
Speaker 2: know that life can be this beautiful opera.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things about aging you use
Speaker 1: the word bewilderment, which I think is absolutely right. But
Speaker 1: the other thing that that Peter Pan quote conjures up
Speaker 1: for me is the idea of the inevitability of a
Speaker 1: sense of fraudulnce when you get older, because you're projecting
Speaker 1: a capable adult in the world on the one hand,
Speaker 1: but inside you're still a massive anxieties and doubts and
Speaker 1: pretenses and whatever. And it seems to me that in
Speaker 1: that configuration of getting older, a sense of fraudulence is
Speaker 1: an inevitable part of it.
Speaker 2: I think you realize that you do roles to play with,
Speaker 2: like parenting in particular. It's like a kind of acting,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean even a simple a thing is
Speaker 2: telling someone it's going to be all right, like it's
Speaker 2: actually it's you know, everything's going to be all right.
Speaker 2: Like a large part of being an adult is just
Speaker 2: saying it's under control and it's it's going to be
Speaker 2: all right. And people are surprisingly trusting when when when
Speaker 2: they hear those words. But but I've never felt it's
Speaker 2: going to be all right, Like I mean, I've never
Speaker 2: felt like things are going to work out, but it's
Speaker 2: very important. Yeah, So much of being an adult is
Speaker 2: just it's like learning to fit in with the sort
Speaker 2: of the the setup that you're that you're given. So
Speaker 2: if you're young, you can define yourself in terms of
Speaker 2: opposition and saying well, I'm I'm like a rebel and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to take part in this like society,
Speaker 2: and then you realize, like as as you get older,
Speaker 2: that like there's no real outside to it, you know,
Speaker 2: and you have to find way of making sense of
Speaker 2: yourself in it. It's like a negotiation, like what's an
Speaker 2: acceptable compromise between your your sort of conception of yourself
Speaker 2: and the way the society allows you to be.
Speaker 1: Your deep tenderness for all your characters, I think is
Speaker 1: one of the things that makes you one of my
Speaker 1: favorite writers, and across all your books is even the
Speaker 1: monstrous characters are the ones that are expressly without quality,
Speaker 1: you have this kind of tenderness towards them, And I'm
Speaker 1: interested in whether that's an essential thing for you when
Speaker 1: you're writing.
Speaker 2: I think that's so George Saunders. When I'm when I'm
Speaker 2: teaching a class on character, I always pull up this
Speaker 2: piece that George Saunder's word for The Guardian, where he
Speaker 2: talks about exactly that. He talks about how as one
Speaker 2: goes back ones normal day, you're prey to the same
Speaker 2: kind of snap decisions and dismissals and short changings of
Speaker 2: the people that you meet as as anyone else. Like
Speaker 2: writers are definitely not sense. But when you're writing sort
Speaker 2: of an extended piece, particularly like a novel, you're spending
Speaker 2: so much time with the characters that you know you
Speaker 2: can't help but sort of dig deeper into the things
Speaker 2: that are motivating them and the reason they're acting as
Speaker 2: they are. So like his example is like, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of a cartoonish version of it, Bob was an asshole.
Speaker 2: Bob was an asshole because he snapped at the brista.
Speaker 2: But then your job as the writer is to kind
Speaker 2: of like follow that that thread and go, like, why
Speaker 2: did Bob snap at the brister? Bob snapped the rest
Speaker 2: of because he was late for work, he was white
Speaker 2: for because it was his wife's anniversary, and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, or whatever it might be. And the more
Speaker 2: you think about Bob, the more you realize that, like
Speaker 2: his behavior is coming from like a deep well of experience,
Speaker 2: and some of it's very bitter and difficult, and that's
Speaker 2: just what it is to be a human being. So
Speaker 2: when you're writing, like that's essentially what you're doing, you're
Speaker 2: sort of dwelling with these characters over a long period
Speaker 2: of time, and you realize that by dwelling with them,
Speaker 2: it's like sharing space with them, We're sharing your time
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we dig into the Beasting itself
Speaker 1: and I beg Paul for reassurance that everything's going to
Speaker 1: be okay, We'll be right back. It's actually really hard
Speaker 1: talking to Paul Murray about the Beasting because, like anyone
Speaker 1: who's read it. I'm full of questions, not least about
Speaker 1: its ending, which is one for the ages, but as
Speaker 1: a book of such delights and surprises across its epic
Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty pages, I'm also loath to spoil
Speaker 1: it for anyone who's yet to crack the spine. Against
Speaker 1: a backdrop of existential crises financial, climate, social, the Barnes
Speaker 1: family are falling to pieces. The father, Dicky, is trying
Speaker 1: desperately to keep his struggling car dealership afloat, acutely aware
Speaker 1: of the disappointed judgment of his father, Morris. Dicky's wife, Amelda,
Speaker 1: is lost in her own memories of compromises past, trying
Speaker 1: to remember who she is and find a way back
Speaker 1: into her own life. Their daughter Cass is in her
Speaker 1: last year at high school and disillusioned with everything, and
Speaker 1: their son PJ is twelve, terrified by the ways his
Speaker 1: family is fracturing before his eyes. Cross generational pressures play out, familial, mythic, sexual, social,
Speaker 1: and all the while the characters hurtle towards a tragic fate.
Speaker 1: There should really be too much going on here, but
Speaker 1: the book's great success lies in the humanity of its characters.
Speaker 1: Murray moves between different perspectives, and the voices are each
Speaker 1: distinct and each indelible.
Speaker 2: That is really the name of the game as far
Speaker 2: as I can see, certainly for me. So even if
Speaker 2: I've got like sort of like a villainous character, and
Speaker 2: there aren't many villains in the things I read, but
Speaker 2: there are some characters I am sort of ill disposed towards.
Speaker 2: So like in The Beasting, I think Morris is a
Speaker 2: pretty kind of a bad guy. Daddy's a bad guy.
Speaker 2: But nevertheless, it's not interesting to me, or it feels
Speaker 2: like sort of dishonest to me to just have them
Speaker 2: there as like as villains sort of throwing their mustaches,
Speaker 2: because they too have a past. They've come from somewhere,
Speaker 2: and when I think about like where they've come from.
Speaker 2: Some Morris, for instance, Dickie's dad, he's come from an
Speaker 2: impoverished background. He's made something of himself. He's very proud
Speaker 2: of that, and to the point that he sort of
Speaker 2: sees himself on top of a you know, a pedestal.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, he can't be just sort
Speaker 2: of reduced to a caricature. And you can tell when
Speaker 2: you're writing, like if a character is one dimensional, it's
Speaker 2: not satisfying to write, and it feels kind of cheap.
Speaker 2: It's very hard to tell when you're writing if anything
Speaker 2: is working or not. If the characters feel like sort
Speaker 2: of they've got some depth, then that's where the path
Speaker 2: is coming from. Like that's where the the next line
Speaker 2: of the next chapter is coming from. Whereas if they're
Speaker 2: sort of, if they're kind of like cardboard villains, then
Speaker 2: it tends to not generate ideas in the same way.
Speaker 1: It's interesting those characters who identify as the kind of
Speaker 1: potentially more villainous ones in your work are in some
Speaker 1: ways an embodiment of a particular kind of modernity and
Speaker 1: a particular kind of a late capitalist, you know, an
Speaker 1: expression of social wrongs rather than individual failures. That the
Speaker 1: corruption in both those cases comes from the ways in
Speaker 1: which society is letting individuals down, you know, in the
Speaker 1: Mark and the void in Skippy Dies, and certainly in
Speaker 1: the Beasting. Part of the story you're telling is one
Speaker 1: of a society that is failing as much as anything else.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, I think I'm interested in those
Speaker 2: points where, just as we were talking earlier about like roles,
Speaker 2: you have to inhabit. You can achieve great power by
Speaker 2: adhering to those roles. At the same time, your sense
Speaker 2: of yourself as a human being would be very would
Speaker 2: really rest on the moments where you have to step
Speaker 2: away from those roles, you know, like be it like
Speaker 2: as a parent, but maybe more so like in terms
Speaker 2: of work, where you kind of think, if I let
Speaker 2: this happen, then very bad things will happen. There'll be
Speaker 2: very bad consequences for people in positions of vulnerability. So
Speaker 2: Dickie's got the sense that like the world is bad
Speaker 2: and people are hostile, and the only thing you can
Speaker 2: do is like protect yourself from them, you know, and
Speaker 2: like hide yourself away because otherwise they're going to destroy you.
Speaker 2: And like that's something I would have felt like when
Speaker 2: I was you know, like when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: like just that sort of vulnerability. And you know, like
Speaker 2: because I've had like a lucky life like I, you know,
Speaker 2: you sort of you learn to trust and that people
Speaker 2: are looked largely good and and you can live in
Speaker 2: the world and be yourself to a certain degree and
Speaker 2: that will all be fine. But Dickie's never learned to
Speaker 2: do that. He's always just had this illusion that the
Speaker 2: only way to be is other than yourself. Try and
Speaker 2: fit in as best you can, and if you don't
Speaker 2: do that, you know you're you're doomed. So there's no
Speaker 2: way out for him because like he can't. The moment
Speaker 2: comes and it said to him explicitly, you have to
Speaker 2: trust your family and just tell them. You have to
Speaker 2: tell them what's happened, and just believe that their love
Speaker 2: for you is going to overpower whatever feelings of shock
Speaker 2: or horror that they might experience at the things that
Speaker 2: you've done. And on one level, like he knows that,
Speaker 2: he knows it's true. He knows his family loves him
Speaker 2: and will forgive him anything, and they'll they'll they'll come back,
Speaker 2: you know, in whatever way that would work. They'll come
Speaker 2: back to him. But he can't make himself do it.
Speaker 2: He can't trust them, you know. And that's what it's
Speaker 2: like to live without. It's a sort of nightmarish version
Speaker 2: I guess, of what it's like to conceive of yourself
Speaker 2: as an individual. You know, the ultimate rendition of the
Speaker 2: capitalistic individual. You're totally on your own, and that's hell.
Speaker 2: It it's hell to be on your own.
Speaker 1: But the great tragedy of the beasting, it seems to me,
Speaker 1: is that for the Barnzas, for each of them, the
Speaker 1: things they desire, the things they need by and large
Speaker 1: and incompatible, but they're just not seen to one another.
Speaker 1: They're not able to say, here's the thing that is
Speaker 1: keeping me awake at night, here's the thing I want
Speaker 1: for myself. For the Barnzas, the failure, first and foremost,
Speaker 1: it seems to me, is one of being able to
Speaker 1: talk to one another.
Speaker 2: I think children can pick up on feelings, and the
Speaker 2: tragedy of the Barnes family is that. So Dickie the
Speaker 2: father is he's playing a role, but the kids, on
Speaker 2: some level, like an unconscious level, can tell that he's
Speaker 2: not fully there. And because he's not fully there, and
Speaker 2: he's stopped being able to be honest with them just
Speaker 2: as they're sort of they're hitting their teens. He's a
Speaker 2: good dad when they're when they're little kids, but as
Speaker 2: they get older, he's he becomes less and less able
Speaker 2: to speak to them. And because obviously the circumstances in
Speaker 2: the book where he's found himself painted into a corner,
Speaker 2: basically from it all comes from from the top down.
Speaker 2: The sense of like of they need to self conceal
Speaker 2: hits the kids too, so so this atmosphere of like
Speaker 2: mutual distrust becomes kind of the prevalent one. And I
Speaker 2: think it's coming from Dickie because like he's sort of
Speaker 2: setting the tone, like the marriage, like the two parents,
Speaker 2: like that their marriage is obviously quite strange, and there's
Speaker 2: there's like major secrets there and to a certain degree
Speaker 2: they've always been pretending. But there's also like there's little
Speaker 2: moments in the book where you can see that there
Speaker 2: there's a capacity to love each other, does a capacity
Speaker 2: to communicate with each other, but they keep on turning
Speaker 2: away from us because they ultimately they don't trust each other.
Speaker 2: And because they don't trust each other, then the situations
Speaker 2: the individuals sort of problems that they have or traps
Speaker 2: that they've found themselves wandering into, become that much harder
Speaker 2: to get out of.
Speaker 1: I think it's what makes PJ such a moving character
Speaker 1: throughout the book is the ways in which he is
Speaker 1: the one who's invested in the family unit. Still he's
Speaker 1: the one who still hopes that it'll all be okay,
Speaker 1: hopes that loving each other will be enough to kind
Speaker 1: of bring them back together when they're fragmented, and it's
Speaker 1: i mean, some of the biggest moments of comedy in
Speaker 1: the book come from his sections, I think. But also
Speaker 1: just that sense of grief, that sense of something that's lost,
Speaker 1: is maybe most acute there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean characters like they're really all certainly when
Speaker 2: you meet them at first, they all seem sort of
Speaker 2: so lost in themselves and so disillusioned with the family,
Speaker 2: and so determined to just sort of escape and imagine
Speaker 2: that the only way that they can become themselves or
Speaker 2: save themselves is to get away from his family, get
Speaker 2: away from this town, and start again on their own
Speaker 2: as individuals. Except for PJ, partly because he's twelve, so
Speaker 2: he's he can't leave the family really, but he's he's
Speaker 2: a believer, like he's he's he's a very he's kind
Speaker 2: of an optimist. He's someone who's very He's got all
Speaker 2: these facts about nature, and he just is interested in
Speaker 2: the world and he sort of loves the world in
Speaker 2: this kind of quite naive way. But he wants the
Speaker 2: family to and he believes the family can come back
Speaker 2: together if they just sort of talk to each other.
Speaker 2: And he's not wrong. You know, but because he's twelve,
Speaker 2: the mode of bringing them together is like he does
Speaker 2: this quite extreme thing, and he tries to run away,
Speaker 2: and I guess, like PJ is, he's the most vulnerable,
Speaker 2: you know, And and he's the one who's sort of
Speaker 2: he's at the sharp end of everything that's that's happening,
Speaker 2: even though no one really sees him, Like in the family,
Speaker 2: he's just sort of this kind of like a bit
Speaker 2: of a pest because he just sort of appears and
Speaker 2: says the wrong thing or starts, you know, telling them
Speaker 2: the fact about nature, and so they're alway kind of
Speaker 2: like dismissing him and shushing him. And but at the
Speaker 2: same time, he's the one who's sort of the most
Speaker 2: exposed to the consequences of being alone, of being abandoned,
Speaker 2: you know, of being sort of an individual in the
Speaker 2: world because he doesn't really know how things work, and
Speaker 2: there are people out there who want to to take
Speaker 2: advantage of that.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, The Basting, for all its moments of great comedy
Speaker 1: and joy and beauty, still remains from a deeply pessimistic book.
Speaker 1: Like remains from a book that seems to be about
Speaker 1: the ways in which we're doomed as a people, as
Speaker 1: a society. Am I reading it wrong? Making me feel
Speaker 1: better at Paul.
Speaker 2: It's very, very difficult when you take the white view
Speaker 2: to see a huge amount of hope. Frankly, at the
Speaker 2: same time when you don't take the white view, when
Speaker 2: you are just like a person walking around in the
Speaker 2: world and you're talking to people and among people. Like
Speaker 2: I said, people don't no one wants the world to
Speaker 2: go up in flames. Like I feel like we're all
Speaker 2: to a certain degree in Dickie's position whereby and I
Speaker 2: think that's maybe the reason why people sort of have
Speaker 2: kind of connected with this book. We're all in this
Speaker 2: position where we've sort of been taught to believe that
Speaker 2: life is a certain way, which is that we're all alone.
Speaker 2: And you know, when push comes to show, you have
Speaker 2: to look out for number one because other people are
Speaker 2: just going to drag you down. But that's not a
Speaker 2: sort of viable way of being. So I live. I
Speaker 2: live in Dublin and Ireland and it's a place where
Speaker 2: and it's a sense I got from my brief time
Speaker 2: in Australia too, like that that it's a place where
Speaker 2: there's a lot of community. You know there's a sense
Speaker 2: that that networks for want of better words, are important
Speaker 2: to people, and people do see the value of having
Speaker 2: friends and having family and having people around them who
Speaker 2: they can speak to. And I think if you're aware
Speaker 2: of that, then you're aware that it's worth preserving, and
Speaker 2: you're aware that it is valuable and that offers things
Speaker 2: that stuff consumers and like can't really replace. But just generally,
Speaker 2: like in terms of pessimism, like when I was finishing
Speaker 2: that book, I mean I felt like it ends with
Speaker 2: it like that's a dark statement, Like there's no denying that.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I think that dark statements.
Speaker 2: I think the ending works because you can see as
Speaker 2: a reader that like there's an alternative there, like that
Speaker 2: that this is a family. They aren't all ourselves, like
Speaker 2: as individual people, Like they're nice. If you met them
Speaker 2: in the pub, you'd like you talk to them and
Speaker 2: you think, like that that was a pleasant conversation. But
Speaker 2: equally like they have the capacity to relate to each
Speaker 2: other and love each other and be honest with each
Speaker 2: other in another life and a better day, even you know,
Speaker 2: they would be able to dig themselves out of this situation.
Speaker 1: Just before I let you go. I did want to ask,
Speaker 1: after that shaky start with your dad saving you job
Speaker 1: ads for other jobs and other things you could do.
Speaker 1: As you became published in each of the books, did
Speaker 1: he read you and did that change his belief in
Speaker 1: the venue of being a writer for you?
Speaker 2: Like you would think he might have pivoted to things
Speaker 2: that were more sort of writing adjacent, so he'd say, like,
Speaker 2: there's a librarian position in Sligo County Library, so you
Speaker 2: might be able to do that. But with the beast thing,
Speaker 2: I told him not to read us. I tell my
Speaker 2: parents don't read it because it's too traumatic. But they
Speaker 2: did read us, and that was the first time he
Speaker 2: really changed his mind. It's been such a blessed book
Speaker 2: like it's it's it's sort of had such an amazing
Speaker 2: run that even a parent who's constantly worried that their
Speaker 2: child is going to end up on the streets, even
Speaker 2: he could see that it had gone well. And he
Speaker 2: was really proud of us. And and you know, someone
Speaker 2: said to me, like, when he was sick, aren't you
Speaker 2: lucky that he was around to see us like that?
Speaker 2: He's around to see it. And I hadn't thought of that,
Speaker 2: but I was. I was lucky. I am lucky that
Speaker 2: he was around to see it, because he got such
Speaker 2: even when he was dying. I remember, like when when
Speaker 2: he was in hospital, going to see him and he
Speaker 2: couldn't speak anymore. I told him I was going to London.
Speaker 2: I've been shortlisted for not one, but two prizes. And
Speaker 2: I've said this to him and he looked just so sick,
Speaker 2: and he was so he was so diminished, he was
Speaker 2: so sad. But I said, oh, yeah, I won't see
Speaker 2: you till till next week because I've got to go
Speaker 2: to London and I've got these these two prizes. And
Speaker 2: he just had this huge smile. He was just so happy.
Speaker 2: And that was a moment that I will I'll always remember,
Speaker 2: you know. And and I think if you're if you're
Speaker 2: a parent, all you want is for your kids to
Speaker 2: be okay and to feel like that you know when
Speaker 2: you go, your kids are gonna be okay and have
Speaker 2: have like happy lives. So I think for certainly, for
Speaker 2: a moment, he was able to kind of believe that
Speaker 2: that was you know, we're going to be all right.
Speaker 2: So I was really grateful for that.
Speaker 1: All four of Paul Murray's wonderful novels are available at
Speaker 1: all good bookstores. I'd give a particular plug for the
Speaker 1: hilarious madness of Skippy Dyes. And if you need to
Speaker 1: join a group therapy session to discuss the end of
Speaker 1: the Beasting, email us at read this at Schwartzmedia dot
Speaker 1: com dot au. Before we go, I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know what I've been reading this week, and it
Speaker 1: made me laugh a lot when I heard that Shock
Speaker 1: Doctrine author Naomi Klein was writing a book about being
Speaker 1: serially mistaken for Beauty Myth author Naomi Wolf. Despite being
Speaker 1: a big fan of Klein's, I have more than once
Speaker 1: had to do a double take to remember which Naomi
Speaker 1: is which. Well, it's important to say that Klein's latest book, Doppelganger,
Speaker 1: which is just one of the Women's Price for Nonfiction,
Speaker 1: is much more than just to throw away joke. It's
Speaker 1: an amazing book. It's about identity and contemporary life, about
Speaker 1: the divide between being a public intellectual and a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory toting grifter. It's a fascinating rate. You can find
Speaker 1: it and all the others we mentioned at your favorite
Speaker 1: independent bookstore. That's it for this week's show. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, please tell your friends and rate and review.
Speaker 1: It helps a lot. Next week I read this, I
Speaker 1: speak with a literary legend, the Sri Lankan born Canadian
Speaker 1: writer and poet Michael Dacci, who's been publishing work for
Speaker 1: more than fifty years. Read This is produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Clara Ames. Mixing and original compositions by Zalton Fetcher.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, See you next week.