Kirsten Krauth

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

I am not reading much, no.

I've actually turned to music.

Music seems to be the thing that I'm really enjoying.

I've started learning guitar and I've started writing songs as well.

I find like I can kind of manage those sort of small, I guess, lyrics or poetry I can manage.

But, yeah, I'm really, really getting into music again.

Yeah, well, it's a novel set in the 1980s and now.

It jumps between two periods and it's about music and memory and how the songs we love shape our lives.

So it's structured as an 80s mixtape with each chapter an 80s song and

from pop songs like Change in Mood to punky songs like Nick the Stripper.

And it's also about photography and motherhood and how making things, making art can help you in a time of immense grief.

No, I wouldn't say so.

I am an 80s tragic and I grew up absolutely addicted to Countdown.

So I'm like Mona, I guess, in the book.

But I didn't really get into Nick Cave or the post-punk era until a lot later on.

So no, I didn't know any of that music until I started researching the book, really, except for Shivers, which is the title, which the title comes from.

Yeah, well, it started off my interest in the Crystal Ballroom, which was a venue in St Kilda in the late 70s and early 80s.

I actually went to the place and I sat inside and it's apartments now.