Steve Toltz

speaker

222 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 20 Apr

Steve Toltz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 2.

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The Book Show · Steve Toltz rolls the dice · 20 Apr 2026 podcast

Now, this is the cruel and funny start to A Rising of the Lights, the new novel by Australian writer Steve Toltz.

Steve famously shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his very first novel, A Fraction of the Whole.

Hi, Steve.

Hi, Claire.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure.

But this idea of rolling a dice to see which child will live with which parent, it's brutal.

Yeah, I think I found it a bit of both.

But I want people to get a bit of a sense of the tone and of the relationship between these parents who are probably some of my favourite characters in the book.

Can you read a little bit just from this prologue here where the parents have just rolled the dice?

Can you read to us what comes next?

Sure.

And that was my first laugh out loud of the book, Steve, was let's agree to disagree.

I never agreed to that because this book is funny and sad at the same time.

Is this kind of the Steve Toltz trademark?

Why is being miserable funny?

Okay, well, look, tell me how this book started.

I want to know what was going on in your life, what was on your mind when you sat down to write A Rising of the Lights?

I love Russell's parents.

After that prologue where we meet them and they split the kids up, we then find out as an adult that Russell is in touch with his parents.

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