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| photo: Isabel Lasala | |
Sarah-Jane Collins is a writer, editor, and journalist from Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia, who moved to New York by way of Gadigal land (Sydney) and Narrm (Melbourne). In Australia, Collins worked as a journalist covering politics, courts and crime, education, the environment, the arts, and women's issues. Her work has been nominated for various Australian journalism and writing awards, and her fiction has won the Overland Fair Australia Prize. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Collins's debut novel, Radiant Heat (Berkley, January 23), is set in the Australia bushlands.
Handsell readers your book in approximately 25 words or less:
A devastating bush fire rips through the Australian countryside, leaving a mysterious dead woman on Alison King's doorstep. Their connection could be deadlier than the fire.
On your nightstand now:
People Collide by Isle McElroy. I haven't started it yet--it's on top of a large TBR pile--but I'm excited to dive into this story of a husband and wife who find themselves in each other's body.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott--I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Plus, I didn't have sisters, and it made me want them so badly!
Your top five authors:
Annie Proulx, because she writes place with such command and beauty. Michael Ondaatje's writing is wonderfully lyrical, and his stories are epics--a perfect pairing. Thea Astley for her beautifully wrought stories of Australian lives. Hilary Mantel's command of history and thoughtful prose make the Cromwell novels unforgettable. Jane Austen was an astute observer of character, class, and politics, and her books are funny and endlessly entertaining.
Book you've faked reading:
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. After university, I spent the summer before I started my cadetship at a newspaper in Melbourne reading all the 20th-century classics I hadn't yet. I didn't get into this one, though, so I never finished it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow by Thea Astley. A gorgeous rendering of a hideous event in Australian colonial history. There's a lot about this book that is fascinating, but the fact it's based on a true event makes it a must-read.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Four Humors by Mina Seçkin. If I'm being honest, I don't buy books for their covers, but if I did, this stunning one would be the top of my list. The book inside is wonderful too.
Book you hid from your parents:
I've never hid a book from my parents! We're big readers and nothing was off-limits growing up. My dad gave me Patricia Cornwell's Postmortem to read when I was 11, and I took it to class and my teacher asked if my parents knew I was reading it. If I was a 15-year-old today, I'd for sure be hiding Maeve Fly by CJ Leede from them, though.
Book that changed your life:
Lots of books have inspired me, driven me to be a better writer, and to work in new ways. I think asking an author this is a little disingenuous, since the obvious answer is my own book, Radiant Heat, which took me from Sydney to an MFA in New York, to the life I have now, writing fiction. Milkman by Anna Burns really made an impression for its refusal to change the dialect and forcing the reader into the perspective of an Irish woman during the Troubles. I loved it.
Favorite line from a book:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." There are other lines from other books, but what an opening, Jane! [from Pride and Prejudice]
Five books you'll never part with:
Close Range by Annie Proulx, because I love her lyricism and her unflinching eye. She writes so beautifully of terrible tragedies and epic relationships. I always want to be able to refer to her words.
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, because the Cromwell trilogy is masterful, but this close imagining of Anne Boleyn is heartbreaking and revelatory.
In the Skin of the Lion by Michael Ondaatje, because I would read an instruction manual if Ondaatje wrote it, but this book is his best in a crowded field.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, because it changed my idea of what science fiction could be.
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood, because it's a dark and perfect commentary on women's place in Australian society and the toxicity of the patriarchy.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I stole my then-boyfriend's copy from his nightstand after watching him stay up all night reading it, and then I did the exact same thing. What a taut, terrifying, brilliant page-turner.
Australian books you recommend:
Tall Man by Chloe Hooper is about the appallingly handled death in custody of an Indigenous man on Palm Island in Queensland, Australia. It happened on the same island Thea Astley's The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow is set, and Hooper lays bare the Queensland Police and the racism and prejudice that led to violence and tragedy as she sits in on the police officer's trial.
Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM by Don Watson. This very large tome is part memoir, part biography by Keating's speechwriter. If you like good writing, it's a joy to read and an incredible insight into a time of huge transformation for Australia.
Pig City by Andrew Stafford is a book about the music culture and history of my hometown, Brisbane. My uncle gave me a copy when I was at university, and it's just a great work of social history, written with great command of the subjects at hand.
Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas is a stunner for its prose and the homesick yearning for the Pacific Ocean it inspires. Lucas's command of the central love story is quietly authoritative and dreamily executed.
It's cheating because it's four books, but Peter Temple's Jack Irish series is a must-read for every crime fiction enthusiast, and the world Temple crafts is a perfect slice of 1990s Melbourne, right down to the footy rivalries.
Steam Pigs by Melissa Lucashenko is a great debut by an Indigenous writer who has gone on to be one of Australia's best authors, and whose voice is an essential contribution to Australian literature.