Final Draft - Great Conversations

Today I’ve got a terrific Sydney novel…

Shirley Le is a Vietnamese-Australian writer from Yagoona. She is a Creative Producer at Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement. Shirley’s writing has been published in Kill Your Darlings, The Griffith Review, Meanjin and several Sweatshop anthologies. My old bio used to say (Shirley is currently working on her debut novel with Affirm Press.) but now it’s out and we are talking about Funny Ethnics

Funny Ethnics opens with Sylvia Nguyen dropping a bombshell on her parents; she’s dropping out of law school to focus on her writing. It’s a blow few parents are equipped to take and Sylvia’s parents are no exception. Sylvia has prepared a speech in English and Vietnamese to reassure them she is not turning her back on her culture, but they are prepared to point out her mistakes bilingually.

Sylvia’s dilemma is one faced by many second generation children of migrants. Somehow though, knowing that she is well supported amongst the diaspora populations of Western Sydney is small consolation as Sylvia tries to live with her feet in both worlds.

When I spoke with Shirley about Funny Ethnics she described Sylvia’s story as occupying the hyphen between Vietnamese and Australian.

While Sylvia’s parents are only too quick to remind her of their struggles fleeing Vietnam for a better life in Australia, Sylvia can only fight against her own struggles. And that means facing the stifling boredom that comes with academic excellence whilst leaning towards her creative impulses.

Sylvia’s father is quick to point out the perilous future awaiting artists and Le shows us a world where a creative young person might win literary awards or stand on stage performing self loathing comedy.

The novel shifts us back and forth throughout Sylvia’s young life. We travel from public school to private high school. From bizarre tutoring experiences to the kaleidoscopic reality of university cliques.

Through Sylvia, Le shows us the wildly discordant reality of Sydney with its Fried Chicken Line seemingly splitting the city. While Sylvia knows where she comes from she also understands that everyone she meets will see that place with different eyes.

The racism that isn’t supposed to exist dogs Sylvia’s growth as she struggles with location, body image and culture. All are battlegrounds between the identity her family has raised her in and the world where she is growing up. This is a world of bricks wrapped in PAuline Hanson headlines hurled through windows and people nominally paying lip service to cultural diversity as they window shop at the buffet of cultural appropriation.

Through all this we see Sylvia finding her voice and noting that amongst the fraught is the bizarre, and the injustice sometimes comes with a side of the sardonic. 

I got a lot out of Funny Ethnics because it showed me the familiar through new eyes and allowed me to rediscover Sydney in ways I probably should have been paying attention to before now

Funny Ethnics - Event Launch 

09 Mar, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm (with Benjamin Law)

Better Read Than Dead, 265 King St, Newtown NSW 2042, Australia

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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

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

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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.

Luke Rutledge is a writer from Brisbane. A Man and His Pride is his debut novel.

Until three months ago Sean had never even had a steady boyfriend. Now a drawer full of fancy undies and an ill advised moment with a bottle of mouthwash have him thinking he might never again.

Sean’s been out for years and relationships, let alone marriage are not things he sees in his future. But it feels like the whole world is talking about gays getting married while all Sean wants is his six-pack back.

When Sean meets William he discovers a new world. One of long term relationships and dogs you call your kid. It’s a million miles from Sean’s life but it’s got him wondering if it’s possible there’s more to life than Grindr and hookups?

Sean’s finally looking to the future, but inevitably that means he’ll have to come to terms with the past.

Final Draft is produced and presented by Andrew Pople

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Today I’ve brought in Robbie Arnott’s new novel, Limberlost.

Robbie Arnott is the author of Flames and The Rain Heron. His novels have won the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Award, Age book of the year and The SMH young novelist award, as well as being nominated for seemingly every other literary award this country has on offer. 

Just a fun aside, as I prepped for this book club I couldn’t help but notice that Limberlost has already garnered a few award nominations. That’s because Robbie’s writing is somehow both ethereal and visceral; having the power to take the reader away whilst grounding us in the reality being drawn for us.

Limberlost is set across a long summer in Tasmania’s north. While war rages in Europe and the Pacific, life on Limberlost carries on, haunted by the echoes of young men gone to fight.

Ned is left at home with his father and sister Maggie, too young to fight, while his brothers enlist in the war. Ned is aware of their bravery and duty but struggles to reconcile himself to their absence and his own dislocation in the family hierarchy.

Ned busies himself hunting rabbits. To provide pelts to make slouch hats for the soldiers is his justification, but really Ned dreams of buying a boat and setting free on the open water.

On a fateful morning Ned checks his traps, only to find an injured Quoll caught in the steel jaws. The animal is a danger to the family’s chickens. Its pelt would fetch Ned a good price, but he is compelled to hide the stricken animal and care for it away from the gaze of his family. 

Ned’s summer stretches out before him, an odyssey that will come to shape the rest of his life.

Arnott’s storytelling centers the teenage Ned and periodically flashes forward through Ned’s life showing the reader the ripples of Ned’s decisions and they shaped the man he would become.

Limberlost is ostensibly the most grounded of Arnott’s novels. It does not have the fantastical creatures and gilded mythologies of his previous books. In Limberlost the mystic is subsumed by a sense of connectedness that ties the natural world with the humans who too often fight against it.

Ned’s journey is one of coming to know his world and the place he occupies in it, whilst always finding himself at odds with its currents.

Robbie Arnott has a way of painting a simple picture that is almost painful in its beauty. Or perhaps the pain is our sympathy with Ned who feels destined to always be a shadow in the brighter light of the men of his family.

Ned’s search for identity is paralleled with his search for place and a sense of belonging. It’s a search that maps the mid and late twentieth century as Ned is blown about by forces of progress and history.

As I read Limberlost I found myself with a feeling familiar from my reading of Flames and The Rain Heron. I searched for Arnott’s purpose, his message. It seemed impossible to me that Ned’s journey couldn’t help but build to some extraordinary conclusion.

And perhaps it does. I wouldn't spoil it for you now would I?

More than any message though I was reminded as I read of how Robbie Arnott’s style and his choice of subject in the vagaries of our natural world can transfix me. I read until I was lost in the rhythms of the novel and found myself incredulous that I was mere pages from the novel’s end.

Limberlost is a wonderful new novel from Robbie Arnott, possibly his best yet.

Go check it out

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.

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.

Vikki Wakefield is a celebrated author of young adult fiction. Her novel This Is How We Change the Ending was a Book of the Year in the 2020 CBCA Awards. Today she’s joining us with After You Were Gone, her first novel for adults and fans of her writing will recognise the tense realism and sharply drawn characters that infuse her work.

Abbie isn’t a bad mum. Like so many parents she is exhausted, overworked, trying her best when one day someone takes advantage and steals her daughter Sarah from a busy street market.

Six years later and Abbie has another life. She can never move on from that tragic day but she is trying. That is until a phone call offers the tantalizing hope; knowledge of Sarah.

All Abbie has to do is blow up her life…

Find Vikki and discover her work

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 from 2ser.

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

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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.

Paul Dalgarno is the critically acclaimed author of Poly. In this special bonus episode Paul sits down with 2ser Producer Irene Diakanastasis to discuss his incredible new novel A Country of Eternal Light.

Margaret Bryce, deceased mother of twins, has been having a hard time since dying in 2014. These days she spends time with her daughters – Eva in Madrid, and Rachel and her family in Melbourne – and her estranged husband, Henry, in Aberdeen. Mostly she enjoys the experience of revisiting the past, but she's tiring of the seemingly random events to which she repeatedly bears witness. There must be something more to life, she thinks. And death.

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 from 2ser.

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

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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.

Simon Rowell is the author of The Echo of Others and The Long Game. He’s been nominated for a Ned Kelly Award and is joining us today with his new novel Wild Card.

When a body is found on the banks of the Murray River, Detective Zoe Mayer is called up from Melbourne to investigate. Despite the violence of the scene and the victim’s ties to organised crime no one seems to know anything.

As more bodies pile up, Zoe realizes she will have to make a breakthrough soon before a gang war erupts within the communities skirting the NSW/Victoria border.

Join us and discover Simon Rowell's Wild Card

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 from 2ser.

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

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Luke Rutledge is a writer from Brisbane. A Man and His Pride is his debut novel.

In late 2017 people across Australia are debating, marching and furiously returning their postal ballots in the Marriage Equality Postal Survey.

Sean’s is stuck to the fridge and he’s not sure if he’ll get to it.

Sean’s been out for years and marriage is not something he sees in his future. Until three months ago he’d never even had a steady boyfriend.

But when that chapter of his life comes to an unceremonious end, Sean finds himself thinking differently. Is it possible there’s more to life than Grindr and hookups?

Sean’s finally looking to the future, but inevitably that means he’ll have to come to terms with the past.

There’s a lot to love about A Man and His Pride but I feel the novel’s strength lies in the way Luke Rutledge has drawn the character of Sean and the way he draws out aspects of Sean’s character through glimpses of his past.

It is quite the challenge to build a narrative that turns on a single character. There is of course an ensemble of support that Rutledge draws on to paint a picture of Brisbane’s gay scene but it is Sean we return to. 

The Sean we meet is hard to like and he doesn’t exactly work to gain anyone’s approval (unless he’s swiping right). Sean’s narcissistic and more than a little shallow about anyone who’s not a perfect ten.

When he meets William though he finds himself evaluating the things he’s valued so far in his life. William’s definitely not Sean’s type, in fact he needs Sean’s help to even get onto the scene that Sean is a self-proclaimed master of. Yet in William’s openness and willingness to put himself out there Sean finds another way of being.  

Through his burgeoning friendship with William though Sean is exposed to a world where gay men make loving committed relationships work.

A Man and His Pride is set against the backdrop of the final weeks of the Same-Sex Marriage plebiscite. The question means little to Sean’s life because he can’t see commitment let alone marriage in his future.

I remember this time and how the vitriol was turned up by the usual crowd of conservative bigots but as a straight, cis man I wasn’t in any way the target of these public attacks. Through A Man and His Pride we are given some insight into the wrenching daily battle to try and capture the public’s sentiment.

In a particularly moving scene Luke works at a volunteer call center supporting the vote. On a random call he must face up against the sort of vitriol and hate he hasn’t experienced in years. He’d thought he was hardened to words spewed from hateful mouths but it cannot help but impact him.

A Man and His Pride challenges stereotypes of gay men and their relationships by forcing Sean to confront his own narrow views. It doesn’t offer simple solutions because it understands that anything too simple is likely to be a facade.

As we follow Sean we are forced to confront his careless behavior even as we learn why he has never been able to open up or trust someone wholly. While we, as readers, may know the ultimate result of the same-sex marriage vote we aren’t given the same sort of guarantees about Sean’s future.

And it is the strength of the storytelling that we come to care so much about just that.

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 

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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.

Victoria Hannan is a writer and photographer living in Melbourne. Her debut novel Kokomo won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. Today she joins us with her new novel Marshmallow.

Five friends, all bound by love, good times and history. One year ago everything changed. Now as they orbit each other’s worlds can they come together and find the strength to carry on?

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 from 2ser.

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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Today I’d like to bring you something different from our usual fare of Australian novel’s. As I mentioned last week, the summer break is a time when I like to explore ideas and read widely.

A short but powerful book I got into was Women and Power from British historian Mary Beard. This book struck me, and the reason I want to share it is for its exploration of how power is entrenched in a given society and particularly the role that language plays in reinforcing power and excluding those who aren’t in the inner circle.

Mary Beard is a classicist and historian who is known for her work promoting feminist principles. Through her writing, public speaking, and media appearances, Beard advocates for gender equality in the fields of academia and beyond. She has also been a vocal critic of the marginalization of women in the public discourse, and has worked to bring attention to the historical contributions of women to Western civilization. 

The book "Women and Power: A Manifesto" comes from a series of lectures that Beard delivered at the British Museum in 2016. Women and Power explores the history of women's exclusion from positions of power and influence in Western society.

In the book, Beard argues that women have been systematically excluded from positions of power throughout history, and that this exclusion continues to the present day. 

Women and Power takes examples from ancient Greece and Rome, as well as more recent events, to show how women's voices have been silenced and their contributions disregarded. 

One of the key themes of the book is the idea that language has played a crucial role in perpetuating the marginalization of women. Beard argues that words and phrases that are commonly used to describe women in positions of power, such as "bossy" or "abrasive", serve to reinforce the idea that women are not fit to lead. She calls for a reconsideration of the language we use to describe women in power, and for a more inclusive and equitable approach to the distribution of power and influence.

Across the two essays Beard makes a powerful case for the ways language can be weaponised against those not in power. Implicit in the argument is that those who wield the language of power get to stay in power.

This got me for all the reasons that Beard puts forward about the historic marginalization of women, but also for the more far reaching consequences of these arguments.

Language is a tool that is constantly called on by those who want to silence their critics

Suppression of language was a key strategy of British Colonial invaders wherever they went in the world. Here in this country English is the official language while hundreds of languages spoken by First Nations are at threat or spoken by a dwindling number of people. This materially impacts both the ability of those people to maintain and practice their culture, but also how these people are able to access power in a language not originally theirs.

We are currently debating constitutional change to enshrine a First Nations ‘Voice’ in the constitution, and yet how many of us can listen to the many voices of First Nations peoples in their own voices and languages?

Language and power also materially impacts people living with a disability. Many disabilities impact a person’s language development, as well as their ability to put themselves forward to advocate on the terms of people in power.

Beard’s essay’s show us how language has been used throughout history to demonize or diminish women, but these ploys of the powerful are versatile enough to meet all challengers.

I’m struck by this every time I’m online or tune into the news; language is a power tool to silence.

Towards the end of the essays Beard observes that “Trolls are not particularly imaginative or nuanced and one Twitter storm tends to look much like any other”. Old tricks can be repurposed but always in the service of the powerful.

It’s something to think about whenever we engage in so called public discourse.

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.

Nina Kenwood won the 2018 Text Prize for It Sounded Better In My Head. Her new novel is Unnecessary Drama.

As Brooke arrives in Melbourne and into her first share house she is ready for life. She’s planned for every eventuality and has a list to back up her plan in case the worst still happens.

Best of all she’s hours away from her hometown and everyone who knows she’s the sensible, listmaking girl. Even better, she's a whole world away from her old life and THE event that defined her whole life in high school.

Yep, Brooke is really going to make something of her new life. That is until she meets her new housemate Jesse and suddenly high school comes rushing back to find her.

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 from 2ser.

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

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