Mark Sutton

I suppose, millennials as they get into their 30s and as they are dealing with life.

I think that's partly why people like Sally Rooney's books so much is because it's presenting this type of experience that people my age immediately recognise as being true to their own.

And I think the people in this book are very much felt like true individuals who I might know, especially their friends in the

because in a previous life I worked in academic and in the art scene and the parties they go to.

And it's a very, very well observed depiction of this kind of Melbourne set of, I suppose you might call it, you know, intelligentsia in the sense that the people they know tend to be academics or writers.

And I think one of the sad things about the book, and there's a particularly good scene towards the end, which I won't give away,

As a reader, aloof from the problems, you are able to see why Clara and Tom could work, or certainly why Clara is a very good match for Tom.

Unfortunately, Tom is not able to

grasp what he needs to be the person for Clara.

And that tension throughout that becomes increasingly apparent means that actually the book, which I might add is a very trim 200 pages, means that that tension makes it quite a quick read and quite difficult to put down because you kind of want to see how Tom's mind works

and whether or not he's going to come round to, to use the phrase again, the various elephants in the room that are causing these issues in his relationship.

Your memory serves you well.

Yes, we were in Bali on a holiday much like the holiday these two are on at an age much like the age that these two are.

And similarly, having never really been on a holiday like that before, you know, a kind of lie by the pool, and we were supposed to be in Bali for six days and the volcano ash canned flights and we were stuck there for, in the end, what amounted to about 15 days.

LAUGHTER

So this this oneric time fugue state that they are in is something that I was deeply familiar with.

Well, yes, I should point out that another one of the really true-to-life depictions in the book that certainly cut close to my bone was the description of Tom as a casual tutor at university, especially his first experience of it, where he has this combination, which I confess I related to perhaps too much, of on one degree –

frustration at the students at not being as committed to the course as you want them to be, whilst also having this kind of imposter syndrome where you think that these intelligent young people are going to see through the fact that you're not quite the expert that you are presenting yourself to be.

And these twin tensions that are quite stressful as you stand in front of a class for two hours and

and be the face of a university and attempt to educate them.