Michaela Kolofsky

And I think about the way that war therefore lingers, you know, both in place and in people's day-to-day experiences.

I agree, Kate.

But look, let's come back to the present for now and let's start by travelling to New Zealand.

This novel is the story of Alex.

He's a young man who we meet in 2015, although the book tends to jump around, which we'll talk about in a moment.

He's in his 20s when we meet him.

He's been living in Dubai for the last couple of years and he works in...

some kind of music industry where he uses music to sell anything to anyone.

He's living a pretty solitary life, I think I would say, working very long hours and not talking to his family.

He's deliberately left his family behind and we very gradually learn a bit about

who his family was but we he has to return to new zealand when we meet him because both his parents have died in a car accident his parents as it turns out were kind of nz celebrities they were filmmakers who adored each other and were a creative team but maybe didn't spend very much time with their children alex has a twin sister called amy and they have a very fractious relationship and it takes you a long time in the book to work out really what was at the core of that

I should say as well that the book is called State Highway 1, but it's also a great analogy.

It's this one highway that runs the whole length of the country, the whole length of their home, and you can't get off it.

They cannot get off it.

They have to be on it and in it.

And they have to get somewhere.

They have to get it or understand it before they can be anywhere else.

And that's a very good analogy for Alex.

You know, it's his home and he has to come home and make peace with it in order to kind of free himself and live his own life.

But as you were saying, we start in the present, but we sort of flip back into these other timeframes in the book, particularly in the lead-up to Alex leaving.