Robert Lukens

how I'd want it to exist.

I get tongue-tied even working out how to respond to that.

It's been lovely, you know, because David Maloof has been a hero of mine since I was a primary school kid when our teacher read us Jono from start to finish.

He's part of the landscape of Queensland literary world.

So the fact that at some point he found my novel and read my novel and seemingly liked my novel and since then has seemingly gone around making other people read my novel.

It's a slightly surreal and completely lovely experience.

Yeah, he's one of those secretly incredibly generous writers who goes around the place secretly doing nice things for you.

I had a great summer of reading.

It was a bit remarkable.

I didn't read a single dud, which worries me a little.

It worries I've read myself into a bit of a corner where I'm just reading things that I'm going to enjoy, which is a terrible situation.

But what really stood out was I absolutely loved Shell by Christina Olsen, which I know you've read about on, you've spoken about on this show before and it's...

Now I'm looking forward to it.

It's next on my list.

It's magical.

It's a magical evocation of the time and obviously of the building of the Opera House, but the shadow of the Vietnam War.

But it's also just an incredibly crafted novel.

She's just such a magical stylist.

And stylist gets used as some kind of criticism or something, but it's just purely on the sentences alone.

It's just such a magical novel.