Cassie McCullough

We're heading to Bluebird Beach, where a decaying house is full of slightly dilapidated characters.

Yeah.

And also with us is documentary maker, Johan Gabrielsen, who's joined us as a reviewer before, but for today's discussion, we should add that he has lived in Bondi for 20 years.

Johan, welcome.

But Johan, you also made a radio documentary a few years ago for Radio National that included oral history interviews with old surfers.

So you've been interested in the way that surfers talk about themselves?

And Stuart, this character from the 1960s who Johan made a documentary about, is he somebody you had already, you had heard of?

both the real world of australian surfing and its characters its language even the the mythologies that can sit around surfing all of that i think feeds into this novel that we've all read bluebird by malcolm knox and malcolm knox is himself a surfer as well as a journalist a columnist a sports writer with about 20 books under his belt including six novels

And on the ABC Book Club Facebook group, one listener, Margaret Maguire, said, does anyone else love Malcolm Knox's writing?

I think he's a brilliant writer and can't resist him, even though the characters are horrible people.

And she went on to describe him as one of the hidden geniuses of Australian fiction.

And this house that overlooks Bluebird Beach is not simply a house.

It has become a sort of default clubhouse for old Bluebird.

for the men who Johan described, who are still surfing every day, who look out to sea, who know each other, who've known each other since they were kids.

And so there's Gordon and Kelly and their son Ben,

there's a god daughter or an oh my god daughter as she's referred to called lou who's staying there as well and all these other characters who come in and out who expect to be fed who want to get a coffee who stop and get changed there and so as much as it's a house it's also an institution but we not only meet them in the house we meet them in the car park overlooking the beach

sussing out the waves.

And as they congregate, these characters have names like Snake and Chook and Redcap, Fiery Sam, Japan Ned.

Yes, we're going to have to be very careful whenever we refer to him that we get his name right.

I think we do know what you mean, Cassie, and we're going to have to be careful that we don't slip up in our references.