Lily King

And it is a fictional town.

That makes it harder for us to remember.

It sounds very authentically Australian.

Putting us on the spot.

And he's come to demolish a bridge.

And this other, the other protagonist has come to establish, she's a kind of a curator and a very good crafter and quilter.

And she's come to establish a museum of Aboriginal arts and crafts.

And it's a love story.

but they're very, very unlikely lovers.

I mean, it's kind of the last thing they came to do in their lives is fall in love.

And it's very, very funny.

And I highly, highly recommend it.

I mean, of course, I also just need to make a plug in case I don't get the mic again for The Children's Bach by Alan Garner, I think is just an extraordinary book as well.

Yes.

I mean, it was in the context of a larger talk about

my government and my vile and cruel and deadly administration right now and how I had tried to write a political murder mystery kind of directly speaking to the first Trump administration.

And then instead, I just had to make a huge pivot and write a love story.

And then now we're in the second Trump administration and it does feel like a radical act.

It feels like

To write about love is to write about our best emotions of our humanity and our best selves.