Claire Nicholls

I think I probably am not the only person here who has read a book and sometimes skipped the footnotes.

They felt a little bit intimidating.

The fun thing in this book is there is a whole other story happening in the footnotes.

How revolutionary and how playful is that to tell a story in footnotes?

It was super fun.

And the man talking to us in the footnotes is this academic Harlow Dunn.

Who is this man?

He leaves his partner and his child behind to go to Oxford to pursue this opportunity.

What I find really thrilling about this book is on the top of the page we have this verse, you know, this soad, and then on the bottom of the page we've got all these footnotes where we're seeing Harlow's story, and we're learning in Harlow's story about, say, the breakdown of his marriage.

The contrast between the epic and the domestic is so clear on the same page.

Was it always obvious to you that there is space for these two stories in the same place?

Do you have an opinion on Harlow's choice?

Do you think he made the right call to go to Oxford?

You have four children.

Do you write with the door open or is it dad's working door shut?

That's Jan Martell keeping the study door shut.

And on Radio National, you're listening to The Book Show with me, Claire Nicholls.

Jan Martell is most famous for his Booker-winning novel, Life of Pi.

That's a book also very much about myth.

And I wonder, why are myths such an exciting drawcard for Jan?