Carl Kinsella

But probably, you know, as I say, a sugar rush, but you don't leave, you don't sort of finish feeling incredibly nourished necessarily.

funny novels do.

I think it's got to bring, I mean, the set-up is it's got the family with the three daughters and Harper, the youngest, who is too clever for her own good, and Louise, that terrible middle child that seems to get forgotten, and then Abigail, the beauty.

And each of them are wonderful characters and you want to spend more time with them.

But I think ultimately, and I'm not going to give any spoilers away, but the plot... Oh, I am.

Absolutely.

The plot in terms of, you know, the mystery behind it is a bit Scooby-Doo in its sort of... You say that in a bad way.

Well, I guess it's, you know, if you're happy to say it's a romp, I kept thinking I want... You're right, it does try to... I think it wants to tackle some bigger issues, but I think it's so light and frothy that it doesn't really get into them.

I mean, these are, you know, it's funny, I like it a little bit too.

You know, it's, you know, there are some serious issues here.

It's a bit like when DBC Pierre wrote Vernon God Little.

I mean, he wrote a satire and a comedy set around high school shooting.

Initially, you'd go, how can you make fun of something like that?

And I don't think this is in any way, you know, it's not on that level in terms of the issues it wants to cover, but it does, it satirises a whole level of society, but mainly a very dysfunctional family.

Every time she raises something with her parents, it's almost like, go and learn another language.

She learns another language.

It's a bit odd because it's a small town and yet it's obviously got a major shipping port and the owner of that shipping port is a billionaire and much of the sort of the plot, the Planterstein sort of plot is surrounded, you know, again, and this is where it again touches on the satire on billionaires that want to control the future or control society or want to control their own longevity.

Yeah, the parents.

It sort of opens where the girls are completely neglected and they've got to be left to their own devices because, you know, mum has sort of declared that they've now got an open marriage, Catherine and Bud.

And so she's gone off, you know, hoping to sort of hook up with a neighbour and Bud is sort of living in his car and there's nothing for the girls to eat in the pantry and they've been left to their own devices.