I’ve done a few interviews over the past couple of weeks. ‘Published or not’ on Melbourne radio station 3CR had a chat with me about the metaphysics of From the wreck – it was the first time I’d heard someone else read the book out loud, and it sounded great!
Annabel Smith asked me about the five things that made the writer I am, and gave me a chance to talk about my parents, my friends, my husband and my publisher, as well as human rights in 1980s Latin America, oddly enough.
Maureen Eppen also got me to mention Uruguay – as well as Edith Campbell Berry and catastrophic fires – in a chat I had with her about my strange reading habits for her blog Shelf Awareness. Maureen also interviewed me for Good Reading, but you’ll have to buy the magazine to read it.
Reviews of From the wreck are popping up all over the internet, including at:
- Arts News – a review that looks at the loneliness at the heart of the book, and calls it ‘mysterious, tragic, and heartfelt in equal measure. An absolute must read.’
- The Book Muse
- Mostly Books bookstore in Adelaide
- Blue Wolf Reviews
- Readings bookstore in Melbourne
Why not come along to the launch on Tuesday 21 March at 7pm at the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville?
Jane Bryony Rawson 
I love that one of the reviews compared it to The Book of Strange New Things; how did you feel about that?! Personally, I would take it as a huge compliment. The Readings review is particularly good. I’m happy to see it on these blogs but hope to see it getting some MAJOR PRESS. Have you tried The Saturday Paper? They sometimes go off the beaten track a little. It is awesome. You are awesome.
I’m so glad you noticed that review. Someone in conversation compared it to ‘The Life of Pi’, another of my non-loved books. I want to say ‘no those books are terrible!’ but that’s not what they mean. I hope. Wait a second, maybe it is…
Rumour has it it will be reviewed in TSP this month some time, and maybe those other papers too. We’ll see…
Fingers crossed. Life of Pi is also a fave of mine so i would take it as a compliment. I don’t think your book is really like either of those though, except that it is reads like a realist novel, but has fantastic elements. It’s definitely nothing like those books in style. To me, its closest living relative is the first novella in Michael Cunningham’s Specimen Days. Have you read that? It has historical elements and strange stuff and the same kind of beautiful poetic language as yours. It is wonderful.
Dear Yvette Walker has been telling me to read Specimen Days for ages. I should get on to it.
I remember how I think I offended you by saying Wrong Turn reminded me of Strange New Things 😦 but possibly it was because I read them both – and loved them both – in the same year. Am almost finished From the Wreck. It’s another beauty Jane, super super good. Congratulations. (Also listened to some of that 3CR interview. I would have preferred to hear YOU read from the book.)