Tell us about ‘The Laws of Thermodynamics’.
‘The Laws of Thermodynamics’ is an experimental memoir. The chapters are made up of counterparts that share an image, with the one drawn from the narrator’s life and the other from history (if that sounds annoyingly vague, you can see what I mean in this essay, which started the project). I wanted to challenge myself to leave out an overt analysis, instead making the spaces between sections do all the work — having the meanings stretch their legs there. Would the meanings be more powerful if the reader had to actively engage in constructing them? Could I get away with discarding a lot of the connective tissue? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m doing the writing as a kind of test to find out.
What is a constant in your life, even as other things change?
Learning. Not all that long ago I realised that no matter how old you are, you’re never a grownup. You’re in a state of becoming until you die, and never have it all figured out.
What was the last book you had trouble finishing, and why?
‘Finishing’ as in leaving aside/no longer leafing through: Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World, translated by Lisa Dillman. As soon as I finished it, I re-read it. Then, I pitched a review of it. I’ve just finished writing a 4,000-word essay about it (for which I compared the English- and Spanish-language versions, i.e. yes, I found an excuse for even more close reading). Now, finally, I have packed it up in a box with a few other things to post home to Australia. If I hadn’t, I would still be dipping into it — it’s exquisite.
Which nonfiction writers are doing the most interesting things with the form at the moment, do you think?
In Australia, I would say Maria Tumarkin, Evelyn Juers, and Michelle Cahill.
Which nonfiction writer would you most like to have a drink with?
I would most like Bruce Pascoe to have the drink he wants to have, which is with Andrew Bolt (though, as he writes in ‘Andrew Bolt’s Disappointment’, they might reach an impasse: Bolt will only have good red wine, not beer, and wine wreaks havoc with Pascoe’s arthritis).
Who is guilty of greater crimes against literature: James Franco or James Frey?
Ha! As much as we might rail against both, I think our response as a culture (or cultures) is what is most revealing and interesting — and what might need revision — rather than the people who provoke the controversy. That said, Michael Derrick Hudson is an exception; his stunt says much more about him than the culture he was trying to show up.
What do you think of writing that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction? Does the line matter?
I love playfulness around this — for example, Evelyn Juers’s House of Exile, Miles Allinson’s Fever of Animals, or Luke Carman’s An Elegant Young Man. But I also love the challenge of not making anything up, and striving to coax the reader into thinking, Surely this can’t be true! There’s a real delight in that, for me.