Cirrus@Austlit

Transcript available on website.

Show notes 

• Tom was captivated by Walter Scott as a child, and Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans had a profound impact on him. As a teenager, his ‘literary TNT’ became the works of T. S. Elliot, Virginia Wolf, and George Eliot, as well as Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One and Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock.
• His early writing was influenced by the historian Edmund Campion and the journalist Brian Johns.
• Tom believes both Judith Wright and Kenneth Slessor were undervalued during their lifetimes, and that Patrick White is Australia’s ‘lonely nunatak of excellence. He also adores the works of Thea Astley and Helen Garner.
• Tom refers to Canberra poet Mark O’Connor and John Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.
• The Rerum novarum Tom refers to is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891.
• Tom worked with the award winning Australian director Fred Schepisi on the adaption of his novel, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (he also had a minor role in the film).
• Schindler’s Ark (later renamed Schindler’s List) was influenced by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
• When reflecting on what makes a novelist, Tom quotes fellow Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai.
• Tom now co-writes with his daughter, Meg Keneally, and discusses their writing process for Unmourned.