My First Book Tour!

There is so much to talk about this month and I don’t even know where to start. I feel like I’ve barely had a spare second since The Caretaker hit shelves – in the best way possible. But in the interests of not writing a new novel in place of a newsletter, I’ll do my best to move quickly through the big stuff. First up being…

The Caretaker is doing really, really well

I was nervous about The Caretaker, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. The book landed with strong sales in its first week and has only built from there. At the time of writing it hasn’t quite managed to crack the top ten in fiction overall, but it’s come close – it reached #9 in Crime and Thrillers and, the next week, #2 in Australian Fiction.

While there are so many people who deserve the most effusive thanks for this result, I think it’s a given that these numbers would not have happened without the amazing work of the QBD Books team, who chose it for their August Book of the Month. Visiting so many QBD stores around the country in the past few weeks, I’ve seen firsthand just how much the crew are getting behind The Caretaker, selling it to readers everywhere and putting it front and centre in all their stores. Honestly it’s at times a little overwhelming that such a passionate and effective push is happening for something that I wrote. I could not be more grateful to QBD – but also, to every bookseller out there who has read and supported The Caretaker. You guys always have so much sent to you, and I completely understand not getting to everything, but to everyone who picked Caretaker and liked it, thank you, so much.

My First Book Tour

The Hunted, The Inheritance and The True Colour of a Little White Lie were all Covid releases, which made getting out and promoting them essentially impossible. I did plenty of online events and the occasional in-person one when restrictions permitted, but it was always limited.

The Caretaker has been an entirely different experience. Release day we sent the book into the world with a launch in Hawthorn. Lyn Yeowart (The Silent Listener) asked the tough questions about process and development, leading to a great chat followed by a great celebratory pub session. Then, that Friday I headed to my hometown of Mansfield where Margaret Hickey and I sat down at the packed out Ink Bookshop for a freewheeling, fun chat about our very different writing styles.

But it was the weekend after that the tour itself really kicked off. I flew early to Brisbane on Friday, then immediately tried to call an Uber to head to the first of many QBD stores I’d be signing at. My Uber driver was ‘five minutes away’. Five minutes later he was still five minutes away. Turns out he was at Maccas. I cancelled and ordered another. The same guy accepted. Still five minutes away. Still at Maccas. Every Uber I ordered, the same space cadet accepted and I fell more and more behind an already super tight schedule (he had not left Maccas).

I gave up and got a cab. The friendly cabbie knew what bookstore I was headed to. Or so he thought. I ended up at an Anglican Church store that almost certainly did not stock The Caretaker.  

Anyway, I eventually managed to hit all the QBD stores on the list, meeting so many awesome and enthusiastic staff members – I also stopped for an afternoon tea at the QBD head office for some laughs and chats (mainly about Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which was unexpected), before racing to Avid Reader for my first interstate event – an in-conversation with Veronica Lando. After a fantastic conversation it was out for drinks, off to bed, then up the next morning for another round of QBD visits before taking the plane back to Melbourne.

Yeah, Melbourne – due to a planning quirk I was flying back that night, then flying to Canberra first thing the next morning. More QBD visits, then I was catching an Uber with Mercedes Mercier to our event at The Book Cow.

I can’t stress enough how lucky I’ve been with conversation partners this tour. I’m already good friends with Marg and Lyn so there was no doubt we’d get on well, but I met Veronica and Mercedes literally minutes before we were on stage together, which could have been a disaster but wasn’t due to how funny, charming and brilliant they both are.

Plus it didn’t hurt that Jack Heath, a great mate and great author, was in the audience at Book Cow and ended up being a de facto third part of our conversation.

There was a real buzz running through the entirety of this trip. There’s something so fulfilling about time spent having wide ranging conversations with fascinating people, and that was essentially every day of the tour.

Monday morning we were off to Sydney. I’m a closet Sydney fan – while my entire adult life I’ve lived in Melbourne, I slightly prefer Sydney (I know, I’m a heretic) and I love exploring the city every time I’m there. No chance this time. I arrived, ran around signing at some major CBD bookstores, then Mercedes and I were off to Kiama for an event at Bouquiniste – run by another author I admire, Clayton Zane Comber, who I was stoked to catch up with again. Another packed event, dinner and cocktails after, then it was back to Sydney. My head had barely touched the pillow then I was up and doing the QBD rounds. Five minutes later it was evening and I was on a plane back to Melbourne. For a little longer than overnight, this time.

Events were a little more spaced out after that. I did a day of signings in Melbourne – hitting ten bookstores back to back. I dropped in for a talk at the Daylesford Words in Winter Festival.

And then of course, in all of that was Book Week – which meant school talk after school talk. I love Book Week, but placed right after a book tour and interspersed with interviews, you won’t blame me for being a little frazzled and sick of my own voice.

But man, what a top to bottom treat. This month has been packed and exhausting and exhilarating all at once. Getting the chance to zoom around the country discussing my book and hearing from people who really like it is the very definition of living the dream. I could not be happier.

Interviews

I’ve done a bunch of interviews over the last month, not all of which are online yet. But for now, here are the ones that are.

First up, I chatted with Victoria Carthew for QBD’s Crime Club, exploring the inspiration behind The Caretaker, its journey to publication, and why I can’t stand the term ‘likable’ when it comes to characters.

I dropped in to the wonderful Leaf Bookshop for a video interview about maintaining tension, changing course, and the threat of AI – or more pertinently, why I don’t think there’s that much of one for authors.

At Abbey’s Bookshop in Sydney I did a little video introduction for The Caretaker, which you can check out here.

I’ve also got big, wide ranging interviews coming up with Words and Nerds, Set Lusting Bruce, and the Caulfield Grammarians Association Podcast, so stay tuned!

The Customer – a Short Prequel to The Caretaker

QBD have also released online The Customer, an exclusive short prelude to The Caretaker. I wrote this on a plane a few months back and think it’s a bit of ghoulish fun whether or not you’ve read the book. It also features the character everyone seems to like the most.

I’m a mentor!

Or I can be, if you’re after some guidance on your work in progress manuscript. I’m honoured that Kill Your Darlings have chosen me for their mentorship program - check out the details here!

Andromache Between Words has a cover!

In non-Caretaker related news (I can’t quite believe there is such a thing), my next book, Andromache Between Worlds, now has a stunning new cover, courtesy of the supremely talented Jessica Liu. I could not be more blown away by her work, and how perfectly she has captured the tone of the book. Andromache is out January 31 and advance copies have gone out into the world, so if you’re a reviewer or bookseller grab yourself one!

Geelong Event – September 7

On September 7 I’ll be doing a ‘Books in Bars’ event at Ceres Distillery in Geelong. As someone who likes both books and bars, I can’t think of a better way to spend a Thursday evening – come along!

Recommendations

I’m aware this newsletter is already overlong and ergo there won’t be any new fiction this month (sorry, promise there’ll be a Lodger sneak peek next time), but I did think I’d get in a quick recommendation here at the end, even though it’s likely something everyone reading will have seen.

I’m not a Christopher Nolan fan. I find him a deeply frustrating filmmaker who occasionally delivers greatness (The Dark Knight is the only superhero film we’ll still be talking about in twenty years), but for the most part his foibles are just irritating to me. Appreciating he has a lot of hardcore fans and regularly makes bank at the box office, I personally feel like he mistakes obfuscation for intellectualism and pointless structural trickery for ingenuity.

All of which meant I was not looking forward to Oppenheimer. I somewhat doubted I’d even see it. But I guess I’m as susceptible to a cultural moment as anyone else, so I went along and was staggered by how good it is - even though, on paper, it indulged almost everything I dislike about Nolan.

But I found the move so arresting, so gripping and powerful and top to bottom entertaining that it was hard to care. I was never not enraptured. I thought the performances (especially Robert Downey Jr), were stunning. I thought the non-linear storytelling was entirely justified. And despite the fact that I’m the first person to bemoan bloated runtimes, I had no issue whatsoever with the three hour length. The often criticised last hour of the film, which some viewers seem to think drags on too long past the ‘climax’ of the bomb, is the most important part - the part that gives the film its meaning and makes it as much of a rich character study as it is a gripping thriller and cautionary tale. What kind of man makes an atomic bomb, and how does he live with it? The film never commits to a straight interpretation and is all the richer for it. Was Oppenheimer a martyr, a genius, an egotist, a cog in the machine, a nessecary evil, a man who tried desperately to correct his own mistakes - or was he, somehow, all of those things simultaneously?

I’ve got to hand it to Nolan - this is fucking cinema the way I like it. A good story, well told, that swept me away for three hours and left me thinking about it for weeks afterwards.