Maggie McKellar

Oh, gosh, it's such a rich... I could have just read the dictionary.

For me, it was the absolute backbone of this novel and the thing that is so clever and so revelatory in the way that she is reimagining what dictionaries can do.

And she kind of takes this sometimes lifeless form and just imbues it with story and demonstrates how...

words have power and how our understanding of words really influence our understanding of ourselves and the role we play in

in society I thought that the way that she uses the dictionary to tell a story was so inventive and I think people could be put off perhaps when they hear that there's a dictionary in it and in fact that's the thing that draws that that is kind of the stepping stones that takes us through the whole story it ties the future with the past and it's the connection between August's story and Reverend Greenleaf's story um

I also enjoyed Elsie, though I would totally agree with David that the character that will stay with me will be Poppy Albert.

But I think Elsie acted as a kind of a healing, like a go-between, like that really touching scene where she says to August, don't be sad.

I can't remember the exact quote, but it just felt like she was kind of saying, don't be sad about your grandfather.

He died.

ended up having a happy life.

He ended up in a place of contentment.

And that really stayed with me, that sort of sense that I felt like Elsie was a really calming presence, the way she took them in and taught them to cook as well.

Yes, I think that's the scene I was talking about.

Sorry, Cassie, I think the reason she's so almost invisible, even though she's carrying the narrative forward, is because of the grief she's carrying.

And I thought that Tara June Winch did an absolutely wonderful job.

She really articulated what grief felt like in the body.

She describes how August felt when she heard her grandfather died.

And I'll just read you a little bit because it...

I thought it was one of the most powerful paragraphs on grief I've read for a long time.

She says, at the answering of the phone and the breaking of the news, she felt something dark and three-dimensional fall out of her body, something as solid as a self.