Cassie McCullough

I love it very dearly.

That's right.

Well, Southern Gothic just made a lot of sense in an Australian context.

It just seemed to fit.

You know, Maycomb County is a long way away from dwelling up Western Australia, but there are so many elements to that small town.

and the politics of that small town that just made so much sense to me and it just felt readily identifiable.

And so it made a lot of sense to me to want to work on my own piece of Australian Gothic fiction.

And so obviously I owe a great debt to Harper Lee and that novel.

Well, I'm not sure if you would describe it as an obscure choice, but as we move closer to maybe a novel that has meant a lot to me over the last couple of years and certainly allowed me to embark on a book like Honeybee and believe in it, it may be an obscure choice for a lot of listeners, but I urge everyone to read this book.

It's so beautiful.

It's a book called Lean on Pete by a guy called Willie Flaughton who's also a musician.

Yes.

He plays in a band called Richmond Fontaine and also the D-Lines.

It's a very, very special book.

It's so beautiful.

The moment I read it, I read it in a single sitting and I just devoured it.

It's so gorgeous.

And the scheme of it is essentially a 15-year-old boy called Charlie goes on a road trip with a racehorse that's going to be put out to pasture, put it that way, and he wants to save the horse.

And so he absconds with this horse called Lean on Pete.

And it's just the most beautiful, heartfelt, simply told, but intimate and rich and deep story.