Stories of love, friendship, and the ties that bind - with a dash of dirt and darkness in three new works of fiction...Madeleine Gray's Chosen Family, a sharp exploration of friendship, love, and what it means to grow up when life gets messy; Chris Kraus' The Four Spent The Day Together, an autofiction-ish journey through a fractured America; and Graeme Macrae Burnet's Benbecula, where secrets unravel on the windswept shores of the Outer Hebrides.

BOOKS 

• Graeme Macrae Burnet, Benbecula, Text 
• Madeleine Gray, Chosen Family, Summit Books 
• Chris Kraus, The Four Spent the Day Together, Scribe 

GUESTS 

• Nicola Heath, ABC Arts journalist; editor of ABC Online monthly book review column
• Patrick Carey, writer and content maker who works at Sydney Theatre Company 

OTHER BOOKS MENTIONED

• Mary McCarthy, The Group
• Dylin Hardcastle, A Language of Limbs
• David Owen Kelly, Host City
• Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore
• Andrew Pippos, The Transformations
• Helen Whybrow, Salt Stones 
• James Rebanks, The Shepherd's Life
• Maggie Mackellar, works
• Andrew Miller, A Land in Winter 
• Lisa Tuttle, My Death 
• A.S. Byatt, Possession  
• Edmund White, The Married Man
• Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington  

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Tegan Nicholls, Antonia Gauci and Tim Jenkins
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown