Final Draft - Great Conversations

Andrea Goldsmith is the award winning author of novels including the Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlisted The Prosperous Thief and the 2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature, The Memory Trap.

Her new novel is The Buried Life.

Adrian’s colleagues affectionately call him Doctor Death. As a renowned scholar of death in the modern age he has surprisingly little insight into the impacts death has wrought in his own life.

Kezi is a young artist torn between the freedom of her life and the tug of the fundamentalist christian life she escaped to lead it.

Laura is a brilliant town planner anchored by her marriage to an underappreciated scholar.

Each of these characters orbits the other, leading lives of quiet expectation. 

Adrian seeks to find a way forward after the breakdown of his relationship to Irene. Kezi hangs on to the possibility of forging a life outside of the church that rejected her for her sexuality. That she can reconcile and occupy the space carved out when she was so young. Laura is animated by a growing realisation that there is more to her cloistered world and she has been ignorant to what has been holding her back.

The Buried Life takes place across Melbourne and into the lives of Adrian, Kezi and Laura. Here the city is a village inhabited by relationships near and far, and into which we are invited. There we discover how life can give us glimpses of possibility but stubbornly refuse to help us unless we first help ourselves.

The novel is animated by the music and poetry that come to be central to the characters' existence. 

Adrian so long a rationalist has always enjoyed music but failed to appreciate how others can be in its thrall. Returning from a conference, he chances on a recording of Mahler in a coastal cafe and discovers a kind of transcendence that drives him forward. 

When he meets Laura he is similarly enthralled and comes to question the certainties of his life and come to favour living with passion and emotion.

Each of these characters is shadowed by their buried life. 

Imagine, if you will, a sense of incompleteness. A gnawing worry that there is something more to do. That you are living in sepia but aware that brilliant technicolour is waiting if you could just see it. The Buried Life chronicles the journey into discovering that life and the journeys; both physical and spiritual we must take to get there.

I found this novel both moving and challenging. Searching and yearning are such human traits but we all walk a tightrope of wishing ourselves and trying to live in our world. 

Within the novel we are confronted with pain and uncertainty and must consider if we can ever undo some of the damage we’ve lived through. 

I’m reluctant to suggest whether there’s a destination because so often it's the journey, cliched as that might sound. So to the novel as I found myself transfixed by the growing dynamic between Adrian, Laura and Kezi. As they become each other’s family I found myself increasingly concerned with where this might take then and less so if they got to go together.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Steve MinOn is the winner of the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer 2023. First Name Second Name is his first novel

Stephen Bolin lies in a coma in a Brisbane hospital. 

In the hours before his death Stephen awakens long enough to write a cryptic message to his sisters, asking them to carry his body north to the town of their birth.

Stephen’s sisters ignore this bizarre request and so some time later Stephen awakens in a mortuary, stiff with rigor mortis. His now dead brain animated by a single desire, to complete the trip north to Innisfail.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

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Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

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Diana Reid is the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist in 2022. Her debut, Love & Virtue, won the ABIA Book of the Year Award, and the ABA Booksellers’ Choice Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Diana’s new novel is Signs of Damage.

How could everything have gone so wrong?

In the summer of 2008 the Kelly family are enjoying a holiday in the south of France. Bruce, Vanessa, their daughters Skye and Anika and Anika’s best friend Cass.The holiday seems something of an idyll until Cass goes missing. She is  discovered hours later locked in an ancient icehouse but the question remains how? 

Sixteen years later and the funeral for Bruce Kelly is being held a mere week before the wedding of his eldest daughter Skye. Partway through, the service is interrupted when Cass collapses in a seizure. After the shock of her collapse subsides, doctors will cast doubt on whether Cass’ seizures are the product of epilepsy, or some deeper, more mysterious malady. 

What is happening to Cass and how does it relate to that summer in the south of France?

Signs of Damage has me intrigued from the get go. As we open on a coroner's office in Tuscany we understand immediately that something is very wrong. The narrative then throws us back in time where we will watch the events of the preceding week lead us up to the fatal moment. 

Structurally, the novel pairs the fateful weeks in 2008 and 2024 and we travel alongside the characters from the Monday through the Saturday. While Cass emerges as our strongest point of view, with her first person narration bookending the narrative through the prologue and epilogue, we are treated to the perspectives of each of the main characters as we wind through their lives across the paired weeks.

These glimpses of perspective and insight serve to set up a tension between the story as it is lived and the way it is being perceived by each character. No coincidence in Cassandra’s name, as like her namesake from Greek mythology she seems cursed not to be believed as other characters make up their own mind about truth, and how the events of the past have shaped their present.

Signs of Damage works as a taut thriller but also as a kind of commentary on how the work of gripping storytelling turns on both the revelation and obfuscation of facts. We as readers are drawn into the web of storytelling as we too make our assumptions and tease out our theories about how the stories will fit together to reveal the greater picture.

At various times throughout my reading I wondered if I might be in the middle of a speculative, fantastical narrative or even perhaps an ‘all-in-their-head’ type psycho drama. The truth was in fact even more wonderful as I realised that I had become as active a participant in the action as any of the characters, only I was saved from having my theories impact, or perhaps injure the other players.

Signs of Damage is an insightful and entertaining exploration of trauma, mental health and our inner lives. It sets the stage for a drama and then allows its characters and yes even its readers to play out their theories until the inevitable and tragic ending.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Zane Lovitt is the award winning author of The Midnight Promise and Black Teeth

Jamie’s back on Carnation Way. It was a mostly conscious decision, although the dissolution of his marriage wasn’t meant to be part of the move.

It’s not so bad though. A lovely cul-de-sac full of friendly neighbours who look out for each other.

Except for that body they found under the house next door thirteen years ago. Oh and now Claire across the way has disappeared in the middle of the night.

Maybe Jamie should look into this…

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

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Steve MinOn is the winner of the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer 2023.

Stephen Bolin lies in a coma in a Brisbane hospital. 

In the hours before his death Stephen awakens long enough to write a cryptic message to his sisters. They are to carry his body north to the town of their birth.

Stephen’s sisters ignore this bizarre request and so some time later Stephen awakens in a mortuary, stiff with rigor mortis. His now dead brain animated by a single desire, to complete the trip north to Innisfail.

If that synopsis sounds like a lot, that’s because it is a lot. First Name Second Name completes an ingenious sleight of hand in being one of the more bizarre, yet compelling heartfelt novels you are likely to read in long time.

First Name Second Name grew out of Steve MinOn’s discovery that his surname was an amalgamation of two Chinese first names. This discovery compelled him to explore the history that could lead someone to give up something so crucial to their identity.

The narrative twists itself between the contemporary story of Stephen, now a Jiangshi or  Chinese hopping vampire, and the generational story of the Bolin family, beginning with the meeting of Pan Bo Lin and Bridget Wilkie; One a migrant from China and the other from Scotland.

The historical narrative charts a story of determination as both Bo Lin and Bridget must overcome others perceptions to carve out a life in the colony of Queensland. The reader is privy to the imbalance between men and women, but also between anglo and chinese and how the colony’s British origins see Bo Lin’s identity chipped away even as Bridget’s children and grandchildren come to embrace more of their Scottish heritage.

The generations trace their way down to Stephen who as a young man in the eighties struggles to come to terms with a host of identities. Stephen feels the difference between himself and his family all the more acutely as he realizes that neither his cultural, nor his queer identities are things they want to hear about.

Alive and dead we follow Stephen’s journey through the landscapes of Queensland and the chapters of his life. As a Jiangshi he is drawn to lifeforce even as he’s overwhelmed by the pull that takes him into his past.

This journey was compelling and slightly horrifying as we come to realise that the animating force of Stephen’s undead existence seems to be drawing him to discover some kind of space. It’s perhaps not clear whether this is meant to be a peaceful resting place or simply a destination that brings together all the disparate elements of his identity.

First Name Second Name is a wild ride. This is without a doubt a very thoughtful, literary novel but it blindsides the reader with moments of horror and humour. 

While the author acknowledges a wish to explore cultural loss and the pressures that migrants feel in a society that can be hostile to their existence, the text invites its own exploration of this question for the reader to discover.

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Vanessa McCausland is author of DREAMING IN FRENCH and THE BEAUTIFUL WORDS.

Paige White's beautiful life is documented closely for her thousands of followers: lakeside picnics with her daughter, sunny afternoons in the family van, and romantic dinners with her husband. So when she posts an ominous image, and her body is shortly after discovered in the lake, everyone immediately wonders - suicide or foul play?

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Catherine Jinks is the award winning author of more than forty books. You’ve met her on Final Draft when we discussed her novel The Attack…

Catherine’s new novel is Panic.

Bronte’s gone viral in the worst possible way. After being doxed by an ex she needs to get out of town, fast.

Taking a job caring for an elderly woman on a farm sounds like the perfect job; low-key, private and the farm is a health retreat. What wasn’t in the brochure was a group of sovereign citizens attempting to disconnect from mainstream society.

Bronte isn’t sure whether to be worried or bemused, all she knows is she’s got nowhere else to go.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

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Eileen Chong is an award winning poet.  You’ve met her on Final Draft with her last collection A Thousand Crimson Blooms and today she’s joining us with her new collection We Speak of Flowers.

We Speak of Flowers comprises 101 interconnected fragments that can be read in any order, attempting to make sense of grief in the face of great pain.

Loved this review?

You can get more books, writing and literary culture every week on the Final Draft Great Conversations podcast. Hear interviews with authors and discover your next favourite read!

Book Club is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week from 2ser.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

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Catherine Jinks is the award winning author of more than forty books. Her new novel is Panic.

Katoomba’s a small community. There’s not a lot of places to hide when people know your name and Bronte’s gone viral in the worst possible way. Getting social media drunk and angry is never a good idea and now Bronte’s been doxed by her YouTube famous ex and she needs to get out of town, fast.

Fortunately the gig economy is full of jobs for people desperate enough to take them…

Caring for an elderly woman on a farm sounds like the perfect job; low-key, private and the farm is a health retreat. Bronte’s on the first train and ready to wait out her notoriety in the countryside around Bathurst. It should be idyllic, unfortunately what wasn’t in the brochure was a group of sovereign citizens attempting to disconnect from mainstream society.

Bronte isn’t sure whether to be worried or bemused, all she knows is she’s got nowhere else to go.

Catherine Jinks’ stories have a ripped from the headlines quality and Panic is no exception. The narrative captures a bitter melange of our modern insecurities and then throws our protagonist Bronte headfirst into them.

Bronte is eminently sympathetic. She’s likeable, but not saccharine and when we meet her she’s already throwing hands with the internet douches, so we know she’s got the right idea. Bronte’s also capable but not well resourced and so we must follow her as she’s buffeted by fate's ill winds.

That Bronte lands on the doorstep of a group of sovereign citizens is an increasingly more likely plot twist. Once the curious province of current affairs programs, we now know these groups exist, trying to escape their problems by denying the authority of the government they don’t feel like following anymore.

In Panic the group are a mix of the extreme and the sympathetic as they try through bluster and hubris to talk themselves into reality. Veda and Troy want to escape their debts and live off the land, but they can’t even get to town and back in an unregistered car.

Bronte’s dilemma is to be both caring and vulnerable. She’s stuck caring for Veda’s mum Nell. Nell has her own secrets and when her health takes a turn they threaten to spill out and ruin the whole show. Now Bronte must battle to stay out of danger as the sov cits raise the stakes and the police answer in kind.

Panic is a engaging thriller, filled with pacy writing and larger than life characters that will have you guessing. The setting and structure bring clever elements of horror to the tale, even as we dive deep into the procedural dilemmas of trying to emancipate yourself from local government and authority.

If you’re finding the headlines a little too real lately, then Panic might be just the escape to help you work through the issues in an entertainingly hyperreal way.

Loved this review?

You can get more books, writing and literary culture every week on the Final Draft Great Conversations podcast. Hear interviews with authors and discover your next favourite read!

Book Club is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week from 2ser.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

The Final Draft podcast is all about books, writing and literary culture. We're dedicated to exploring Australian writing, looking into the issues that drive our storytelling to discover more from the books you love.

These are the stories that make us who we are.

Sean Wilson is a writer, playwright and communications professional. Sean is the author of Gemini Falls. He has been shortlisted for the Patrick White Playwrights Award by Sydney Theatre Company. 

Sean joins us today with his new novel You Must Remember This.

On a warm autumn evening Grace decides to go for walk. It must be autumn judging from the temperature, and Grace was going to… she’s well, surely it will come back to her.

Grace's daughter Liz assures her she’ll like her new room, but nothing feels quite right and Grace is sure things keep going missing.

Ranging across Grace’s life, You Must Remember This is a story of love and family and the struggle to hold onto your very sense of self in the face of failing memory.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

Want more great conversations with Australian authors?

Discover this and many more conversations on Final Draft every week.

Get in touch with Andrew and Final Draft. We love to hear about what you’re reading!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/finaldraft2ser 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/finaldraft2ser/ 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/finaldraft2ser/