Bernadette Brennan

Well, Bernadette, let's sketch out some of that great story for people who haven't read the book.

There are two Australian sisters, Caro and Grace Bell.

They travel to England with their terrible half-sister, Dora.

Their parents have died in a ferry accident in Sydney, and we meet some of the people who become important to them.

Just on the thing about rereading, we've actually had contact from a lot of listeners on this book.

And here's one from Les from Dandenong North.

He wrote to say, I read this work of surpassing craft and knowledge of human nature every few years, about 15 times now.

The transit of Venus makes my heart pound and tears come to my eyes immediately.

in a way no other work has.

Its improbably reflexive, intersecting, multi-layered plots grow so entirely from tragedies of character and history that they're almost invisible.

Yes.

And he meets this man, boy really, called Sullivan Backhouse.

And Sullivan is in this facility for people who have polio, but adults and just briefly Frank's in it.

Sullivan is in an iron lung.

He's so badly affected by polio that he's actually needs help breathing.

But I love

Sullivan Backhouse.

I think he's one of the most beautifully moving characters I've read in a long, long time.

Yeah, he's the aide-de-camp, yeah.

Yeah, so we find him in this lung and Frank's rolling in in his wheelchair to visit him and he's composing these lines of poetry, staring at a white ceiling.