The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
I love the way he does that.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
I thought it was heavy-handed too.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
And the other reservation I had was that if you're going to do context, you better do context.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
And I think it could have been fuller and more menacing with more of a sense of urgency, which would have made the whole background of the referendum more compelling.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
But they're the reservations I've got.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
I'm reading Tessa Hadley's novel, The Past, which is one of those ones that should be really banal but is not.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
It's a group of family, hasn't seen each other for a while, don't get on terribly well, meeting
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
at a house that they haven't been to for some time.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
What she's so good at is slightly unsettling details.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
It's interesting, isn't it?
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
I think it did.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
I think it actually did because I had to go into a lot of really trying to be as honest and descriptive of things as I possibly could in that.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
And it's not something you get to do much in biography, which is because you're the prisoner of facts, really.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
Yeah.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
But the one I'm doing now, which is Vida Goldstein, first woman to stand for parliament anywhere in the Western world, Victoria, Senate 1903, which is about five minutes after women were given the vote in Australia.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
But basically, I've just thought I'm going to be bolder with this one.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
And I think it's made me bolder, really, because what I want to do with this is be a lot more opinionated and a lot more, make a few more sort of different connections, really.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
The obvious one, of course, is women in politics then and now, and there's quite a lot to be said about that.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
But I think writing a memoir actually does make you freer.
The Bookshelf
On Caoilinn Hughes' Orchid & the Wasp, Steven Carroll's The Year of the Beast, John Lanchester's The Wall and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Result
It might be like, you know, I know that Robert writes fiction, but it's something like giving yourself the freedom to do that kind of thing.