Kate Evans

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So I cried and laughed.

Hello and welcome to Radio National's on-air and podcast monthly book club.

I'm Kate Evans, our theme is memory, and Cathy McCullough, I promise hand on heart that I am not going to impersonate Barbara Streisand and sing that memory song from the musical Cats.

What a smash hit that was.

Some fantastic discussions there, which, of course, people can catch up on and listen on the ABC Listen app or on the Radio National website.

But what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about memory in fiction, as frequent a theme as secrets, love and betrayal, I reckon, Cassie.

Yes, two Australian novels with memory at the centre.

Hugh Brakey's The Beautiful Fall, and that's a story of a man with recurring amnesia who has to rebuild himself every six months or so.

And we'll get to that one in the second half of the program.

Yeah, that one's just brand new.

Yeah, which is interesting to think about what it might mean to read this book when you're a teenager and then come at it again later in life.

And we do have some people who might talk about that later on.

But why don't we welcome today's guests?

Robert Lukens is with us, a return guest to the book club, author of the novel The Everlasting Sunday.