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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast

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Speaker 1: from Newstalk ZEDB.

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Speaker 2: Twenty to twelve on Newstalks 'DB. Kathyn rains as our

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Speaker 2: book reviewer on Saturday mornings. She's got two reads for

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Speaker 2: us this weekend. Hey Catherine, Morning Jack. Okay, let's begin

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Speaker 2: with a Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrian Young.

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Speaker 3: So this is a set primary is very small town

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Speaker 3: in the US, and you get this kind of airy

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Speaker 3: feeling right from the start, and it cents it on

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Speaker 3: this character called James and her twin brother Johnny, and

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Speaker 3: they're really different people. James is always there to clean

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Speaker 3: up her brother's mess and take the blame for his chaos. However,

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Speaker 3: of you always jumped too that where you do jump

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Speaker 3: into the future, and she started life again after these

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Speaker 3: tragic events have actually taken Johnny's life, and she's living

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Speaker 3: in San Francisco. She left to pursue some artistic things,

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Speaker 3: but she'd left not only kind of Johnny behind at

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Speaker 3: the start, and her high school boyfriend Micah. And so

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Speaker 3: two decades later, she's back and bringing back her brother's

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Speaker 3: ashes and focusing, you know, like on this belief that

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Speaker 3: Johnny's death was in an accident, even though everybody keeps

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Speaker 3: telling her that it was, and she really doesn't believe it.

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Speaker 3: So she starts to uncover their secrets hidden in her

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Speaker 3: hometown and connections to her brother, and of course Michaeh,

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Speaker 3: who she had left behind her was very close to

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Speaker 3: her brother as well, and there is this touch of

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Speaker 3: magical realism element and they're almost the connection between two

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Speaker 3: twins really, but it feels quite thrillerlike, and it's told

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Speaker 3: all the time from Jamie's point of view, and she

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Speaker 3: has lots of questions and confusion about her past and

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Speaker 3: trying to understand her brother's motivation, and you get this

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Speaker 3: great tension and airy connection, just a little bit haunting

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Speaker 3: as you're kind of reading it and the backstory and

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Speaker 3: trying to work out how these characters are connected and

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Speaker 3: how everybody fits in together.

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Speaker 2: Nice Okay, sounds very intriguing. That's a Sea of Unspoken

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Speaker 2: Things by Adrian Young. You've also read Dream State by

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Speaker 2: Eric Pushna.

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Speaker 3: So this is set in Montana and Los Angeles and

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Speaker 3: it follows three people and the later their children and

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Speaker 3: across about fifty years, and it's a very character driven

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Speaker 3: novel and it rarely explores the life of these three

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Speaker 3: characters and the significant others, and so the story begins

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Speaker 3: in Salish, Montana, where twenty seven year old Ceci is

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Speaker 3: preparing for her wedding to Charlie at his childhood home,

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Speaker 3: and Charlie is a surgeon working in Los Angeles, and

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Speaker 3: he asks his best friend Garrett not only to officiate

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Speaker 3: their wedding but also look after Ceci in his absence,

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Speaker 3: and so he yet to almost examine these almost mundane

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Speaker 3: events that make up their experiences with friendship and pirihood

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Speaker 3: and marriage and things that might seem ordinary, but there's

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of these complex and deeply forward characters,

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Speaker 3: and those imperfections make it really interesting. And the author

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Speaker 3: has this ability to capture these quiet moments of emotions

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Speaker 3: and turning these everyday interactions into something much more. And

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Speaker 3: because the pacing of the novel is quite slow, you

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Speaker 3: can immerse yourself in these inner lives and the twists

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Speaker 3: and turns in those human relationships and the mistakes that

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Speaker 3: they've made in the past, and that repeating of the mistakes.

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Speaker 3: And it's also interesting a bit of an environmental aspect

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Speaker 3: to the narrative, as these characters kind of transformed by age.

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Speaker 3: You see how Montana and Los Angeles have been transformed

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Speaker 3: by climate change, and you know of this natural extension

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Speaker 3: of almost half a century spent in the worlds of

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Speaker 3: Montana and the changes that they've seen. But really at

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Speaker 3: the heart of this novel is this connection and this

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Speaker 3: complex emotions that people have between them, and it LUs

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Speaker 3: with you really long after you've turned the final page.

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Speaker 3: And it is really interesting the way these three lives

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Speaker 3: kind of intersect and the change that happens right at

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Speaker 3: the beginning of the novel, which talk about it, I'll

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Speaker 3: give it all away, but is really interesting about how

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Speaker 3: the dynamics change between the three of them and how

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Speaker 3: their lives intersect and intertwine.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Cool, Okay, cool, that's a dream state. Ay you PUSHNIM.

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Speaker 2: A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrian Young was Catherine's

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Speaker 2: first book, and of course both of those will be

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Speaker 2: up at newstalksb dot co dot nz Ford slash Jack

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Speaker 2: new music from Elton John and Brandy Carlisle for you Next.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Tame, listen live to

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