Cassie McCullagh

Yeah, it is.

It is.

So this is nice and fresh.

But I get what you're saying about the characters having similar shapes in that each has the negative and the positive.

First you see the positive.

She's said, and I think it was either, I mean, we've both interviewed her, Kate, but I think she might have said it to me, that she used to sit on the train a lot of the time working and she would just look at people and imagine a whole life.

For them.

So closely observing them that each little detail suggested another part of their story.

So, I mean, maybe she is, she does have a way of going about things, Kate, or maybe this is her style.

I'm curious.

I'm just trying to remember.

Is this the closest that Elizabeth Strout has written to the present day?

This is The Bookshelf on ABC Radio National.

I'm Cassie McCullough, and with me is Kate Evans, as always.

And today, our reviewers, Robert Forster of GoBetween's fame and now a novelist.

Congrats again.

And Geordie Williamson, who is a brilliant reader and also a publisher for Picador.

Now, following on from those two very timely, rather grand novels, I believe this one is a tad different, Kate.

So it's a ship, not a spaceship.

That's what I was imagining.