Cassie McCullough

And you may have heard, as I did, the hour that Martin Amis spent on Late Night Live with Philip Adams a few weeks ago, talking about his friendship with Christopher Hitchens.

Okay, so Geordie, why does he need to add a novel to the title?

What a beautiful description.

So this is one of the things that I was...

And I've often thought about that, exactly what you described, those men who were part of this great pantheon in real time, all in love with each other in a way.

And when I was listening to Philip Adams talking to Martin Amis and he said that he even now watches YouTube videos of Christopher Hitchens talking, like, you know, how many years now is it after he's dead?

It's almost hagiography.

Oh, wow.

What an intrigue.

Well, Geordie, you've won me over and you've made your point beautifully with that.

Geordie Williamson and Tegan Bennett-Daylight, what a lovely conversation and what knowledge of books you've brought us today.

Thank you so much.

And Geordie Williamson is the chief literary critic at The Australian and a former publisher of the Picador imprint.

And I'm Cassie McCullough.

There's no trickery in her writing.

It's got her intensity.

Sand, waves and golden summers, blue bottles, broken glass and dangerous undertoes.

Hello and welcome to Radio National's Monthly Book Club.

I'm Kate Evans.

But we're going to begin with Malcolm Knox's novel, the story of a coastal town called Capri, which is just across the water from Ocean City, somewhere on the Australian coast.