Oh dear, oh dear, where to begin?! I just
got home from another INCREDIBLE night at Avid Reader. Oh, such evenings unfailingly leave me with such feelings that
I just want to guzzle the awesomeness of the world.
Tonight was the launch of Romy Ash’s new novel ‘Floundering’. I’ve read about 20
pages so far and I’ve already stumbled into an emotional attachment - the two
young boys in the book are mesmerisingly portrayed. I can feel something harrowing is coming, and I’m
thirsty. It’s a thing. I mean, the book makes you thirsty, it’s kind of a recurring
theme but also a plot point but also
head-exploding-symbolism-for-a-billion-different-intense-things. I guess that’s
why I think she’s an incredible writer. Must just be some kind of bi-product of the words making my head explode. You know?
One of the most interesting things Ms Ash
spoke about was how she didn’t want any “bad guys” in her book. I mean, the people
in Floundering make mistakes (read: I’m
looking at you, Loretta) and they aren’t small mistakes. Some other people are
not exactly normal either, and yet all individuals are handled with such
respect and delicacy that you aren’t given the easy road out by being able to
hate the villain of the piece. What does that even mean? It means that Floudering is particularly harrowing. The
interview was recorded for RN
too – so tune in if you missed it. My tumblr has a picture of the evening too - you know, the whole real-time instagram thing. (Read: mostly I take douchey pictures of food.)
Ms Ash herself seemed honest and clear, albeit a little bit shy. She spoke plainly about her admirable achievements and
when I was getting my book signed she found it very difficult to accept my
compliments. It was lovely. You may know her from the incredible food blog ‘trotski & ash’ or perhaps the food column of Yen, or maybe from her contributions to (among other things) Frankie
or The Big Issue and if you’re
a fan of Four Thousand then this is what you should have seen
a week or so ago and then written in your Moleskine and then turned up to
tonight.
The great thing about Avid Reader is that
it’s great and the people there are great. Floundering
is the book for my next Young and the Restless book club meeting, and I have a feeling opinions and
sentiment and discussion will be in a state of overflowal, so I’m going to take
my idiosyncratic nerdy notes and report them back to you after the 3rd
of May.
You know, just in case you aren’t already
convinced. To buy and read this book. One more reason? Support Australian
authors, people. Because it’s the right thing to do and they’re fucking
fantastic.
Also - tonight I ran into 2 cool people. 1: Benjamin Law who will be teaching me lots of incredible things at this session run through the Queensland Writer's Centre, and who has a pee-my-undies hilarious twitter account full of great things from our silly sunny country. 2: Angela Goddard who is one of the curators of QAGOMA and who is currently running the stunning "Modern Woman: Daughters and Lovers" exhibit that we all have to go see when it opens on the weekend.
See! Where was I supposed to start?! Some very zazzy stuff going down in Brisbane tonight. Oh yes.
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