Diary of Bodies 11: a little love from Queensland

It is rather lovely to report that BODIES OF MEN has been shortlisted in the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards – University of Queensland Fiction Award. It’s extraordinary company to be in; I’m just pleased to see that the novel is receiving love, from readers but now in this way.

All the shortlists can be found here. And an overview can be found in The Guardian (Australian edition).

Who knows what will happen next.

Thanks to all those who’ve engaged with BODIES OF MEN, and have sent me messages of support. I do appreciate it – very much.

Over and out.

Diary of Bodies 10: events, reviews, interviews

As luck would have it, BODIES OF MEN continues to adventure itself into the world and, sometimes, I get to tag along. As many other authors have noted, there is an element of letting go when a novel is published: what happens is essentially out of the control of the person who dreamed it into being. Some of us worry – some of us worry a lot – but that’s largely unproductive. The novel has to have its own ride.

Here are two things that have happened lately, and one that’s about to happen.

Last month there was a review of BODIES OF MEN in the Australian Book Review. Although it’s rather unbecoming (and possibly dangerous) to focus too much on reviews, this one, by Patrick Allington, did offer a bit of a shot in the arm:

‘BODIES OF MEN offers a thoroughly humanising depiction of Australians during World War II. In telling the story of two soldiers, William and his childhood friend James, Featherstone reflects upon the brutality, drudgery, and absurdity of war but also on the two men’s love and regard for each other. He weaves a compassionate tale but one that contains multiple layers of tension. It is also persistently surprising, as if the author has found a way to keep the ground beneath the characters – and readers – constantly shifting. Although William and James dominate the story, Featherstone draws upon a range of intriguing, deftly drawn characters; his characterisations of women are particularly rich and complex.’

Speaking of Australian literary journals, one of the gutsiest and hardest-working, Verity La, published an interview with me this week. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with Tamara Lazaroff, who asked incitement questions. While we’re talking about gutsy, I understand that shortly Verity La will be running a crowdfunding campaign to keep the journal going. If you can, please swing them a few dollars.

 

 

Finally, next month I will be in Sydney doing a double-headline gig with the very fine  Holden Sheppard. Born and bred in regional Western Australia, Holden’s debut novel, INVISIBLE BOYS, won the 2018 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, and will be published by Fremantle Press next month. Our joint gig, in which we’ll be chatting to each other about our books and related topics – sexuality, masculinity, intimacy, maybe even love – will be held at Better Read Than Dead Bookshop in Newtown: 6.30pm, Thursday 10 October. It’s free. More information here.

Thank you to all those who have sent me messages or emails saying they have read BODIES OF MEN and enjoyed it. The other day, at a writing event in Canberra, someone came up to me and said, ‘I read your novel, I was absorbed into the world of the novel, and I have kept thinking about James and William.’ That’s all a novelist really wants: to have someone engage with the work in an open way. I do appreciate it. Really.

Spring in Goulburn, faded footy shorts, and a mother’s warning

In winter you are covered from head to toe. Grey beanie; brown-striped woollen jumper that was knitted by your mother when you were a teenager; long-sleeved black sloppy-joe over black thermal top; blue thermal longs beneath blue tracksuit pants; red woollen socks from the shop in Crookwell; and Ugg-boots, of course. You spend those dark days in your writing room with a bar heater beside you, your right hand hovering over the bars. As the hours progress the room does get warmer, but the rest of the house, a worker’s cottage dating from 1895, does not. If you are lucky, the fog burns off by lunchtime and there is a bright blue sky, at which you will gaze longingly while eating an omelette.

At 4pm off go the jumper, tracksuit pants and Ugg-boots, and on go a pair of grey tracksuit pants, a grey hooded top, black sports socks, and running shoes (if that is what they are called). You leave the house and get on your way, past the little cottages the same as yours, all the corrugated iron roofs rusting, past the newer, bigger houses on their manicured blocks, until you reach the edge of town and the twin water-tanks there with the view across the paddocks to the low ranges to the west, wind-turbines turning in the distance.

There’s hope in those turbines, you think.

Then – in September, October, November? – the outfit changes.

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Keep reading in the Sydney Morning Herald, which commissioned this piece and published it on 31 August 2019.