Something doesn't seem quite right.
Welcome to Not Quite Right.
My name's Ed and I'm Amanda, and we are back with another interview
from Words on the Waves, and this time we are speaking with Sam
Elliott.
And Sam is at Words on the Waves as part of the Inked in Ash panel.
And Sam shared with us his experience writing his two novels, Haze and Deepfake.
So here is our interview with Sam Elliott.
We are here at Words on the Waves with Sam Elliott.
How are you, Sam?
I'm so good, Ed, Thank you so much for having me on the
show.
It's awesome to be here.
And So what brings you here to Words on the Waves?
I am very fortunate.
I was invited to appear on Inked and Ash, speaking with Jen Mills,
Inga Simpson and George Kemp about their works.
So it's like just some absolute pleasure and privilege to be here.
I'll be talking about my novel Haze.
Excellent.
So what's that panel?
It's crime writing.
I think it's more talking about the Australian landscape and what sort of
compels us to to write about it, particularly in some different sort of
depictions of that, be it a disaster or I guess just
essentially more broadly, what draws us to writing about this,
particularly with fires featuring throughout several of our works.
So and your, your writing is set in Sydney,
is that right?
The second book is set in Sydney.
The first one, Hayes, is set in a fictional South Coast town
heavily inspired by where I used to spend my youth, which was Browley.
So Browlette is the name of the fictional South Coast town sort of around Batemans
Bay Area.
Yeah.
And it was inspired by the 2019-2020 sort of Black Summer fires that had threatened
and consumed properties that had never been threatened before, as well as,
you know, loss of life, loss of property, loss of livestock.
So it was something in which is an unprecedented Bush fire scale and what
compelled me to pick up and start riding Haste.
Do you have your own personal experience of that more as an observer,
or was your own property threatened at that time?
I wasn't personally there.
It wasn't my personal experience.
It was more a case of my personal experience was here's this place that I
associated for these wonderful memories of a childhood.
And then that was kind of like this this paradise that had never been threatened
before, Amanda, by bushfires.
And then during this 2019-2020.
There was all these places that have never been threatened before that were
taken from that.
So that was obviously hellish scenes that we all saw.
And that's sort of what compelled me to to ride in that sort of capacity.
Yeah.
And that probably is something that is quite Australian, you know,
the droughts and definitely flooding rains and the fires.
And I think it's something that as a nation we all sort of share,
like our own personal history as associated with these big natural events,
I suppose.
So there's something about it that brings us together, I feel.
I agree.
I think that also, it's one of those things that's that's
ever worsening, Yeah.
With climate change and stuff like that, Like every year seemingly the preceding
year, it's worse than the preceding year in
terms of unprecedented bushfires, unprecedented flooding,
like all these sort of things that continue to happen and continue to get
worse and is very Australian centric.
Yeah.
It's like something that's very inherent to this this wonderful country of ours.
And I think that does unify and unite people in terms of this sense of I guess
an Australian mateship and togetherness.
But yeah, I mean that's the most sort of hellish
conditions that you can experience is bushfires and and this sort of stuff.
And these brave few people that do go out predominantly volunteers to go and kind
of contain this hellish like 100 foot wall of fire with some buckets of sand
and some water.
So, yeah, it's very Australian, Australian attitude in terms of the
Australian, in terms of the landscape and Australian
in terms of the attitude of trying to to go up against these sort of awesome
forces and and hopefully prevail.
So tell us a bit more about your book and what the themes it explores.
OK, so Hayes is set during an unprecedented
Bush fire season that's kind of besieged this small South Coast town called
Bralette.
We're introduced to Constable Dalia Turner,
who is conducting a series of door knocks on properties on the outskirts of town
that supposed to have been evacuated a day or so before.
The last name on her list is her best friends Callum and Xavier Vincent,
and their son Jude Vincent.
She arrives just before the fires close in to find that her two best friends have
been killed and their son is missing right before the fire sort of consumes
the house and she escapes in a way that I won't tell you in support for readers.
So then obviously the next day she wants to conduct the search or contribute to
the search, given that it's her godson that is
missing and she's not really allowed to do that.
She's kind of appointed as a glorified babysitter for a detective.
That's a sign from another case that's handed over to lead the investigation or
search for Duke Vinson, Detective Florence Fowler.
And quickly they discovered that there's seeming evidence that this is part of the
ongoing war that's happening between the two factions of Brow LED.
So there is on one side the town industrialist sort of from a dynastic
family, Hunter Rochford, and he is clashing with Fairchild Shaw,
who is the matriarchal leader of a cult, the People's Cleansing Light,
that live on the outskirts of town in a heavily fortified compound that Dahlia
used to be a part of and spend her childhood in as well.
Yes.
It's interesting.
Some twists and turns about the sounds of things.
There is a few.
Yeah.
And the the the fire makes a very dramatic backdrop for all of that.
Very much.
Yeah.
I mean, that was like essentially a fire really
had to be part of the, like a character in itself as well
because of that.
So yeah, I guess sort of in the lead up to writing
it as well.
It's kind of amazing because what we talked about Amanda,
in terms of the fire being so Australian, it is such an Australian thing.
But in terms of particularly from the, the crime sort of outbound,
the last sort of things, I didn't actually encounter that many
works that had sort of had either fire featuring as a main character or set
against the backdrop of fire bushfire.
So I thought that that was a a good gap in the market to kind of explore as well.
And that's how you think of it.
Fire being a a major character very much, very, very much.
I should say as well, the people's cleansing light worship fire.
So they kind of that fire is going to come and sweep through a biblical fire
and kind of remove the unbelievers and the true will will ascend to heaven or
something along those lines.
So, you know, and then the townsfolk obviously then
immediately blame them for a lot of these blazes because they're deliberately lit.
So there's another factor that kind of adds to,
for further conflict and pressure going on as well.
I mean, not to minimise it, it feels like it could work really well
as like a seasoned cliffhanger on Home and Away as well.
Good old days.
Yeah.
Used to watch Home and Away when there was floods and all that sort of stuff,
people trapped in cars.
And he said, yeah, those are, those are the good old days.
Bring back the glory.
I wish.
I, I just like the highest form of praise.
It's like likening it to that 'cause that's just like my childhood right there.
Absolutely.
So that's based on your childhood.
You said growing up in a Australian town.
Yes, coastal town.
And tell us about your Sydney series as well.
OK.
So this is so.
So I hope this isn't too much of A spoiler, but Dahlia Turner,
the main character, bit of an anti hero.
She she survives and she comes back and then the second book is set in Sydney
with Dalia Turner.
In short, kind of going up against the manosphere.
So at the tail end of the last book, I don't think this is too much of A
spoiler, but she makes a promise to her mother to
kind of see what's happening with her niece, who's increasingly troubled.
She has a very strange relationship with her sister Heidi,
who is the mother of Isla, the one in which is deteriorating.
So she agrees to go to an event with Isla in Sydney,
sort of set in a fictional Central Park shopping centre.
That is revealed to be an event for a sort of Andrew Tate type figure called
Jackson Price, who is unveiling his touring schedule for
Sydney, which happens to coincide with their
child Shaw, who's become somewhat of a feminist icon
and celebrity and sort of the antithesis of everything in which the manosphere
stands for.
So they are having alternating also coinciding events at the Darling Harbour
Arena lead up to that.
So while Dahlia and her niece are kind of witnessing this event,
some of the Madonna's, which is a cell or activist depending
upon who you look at, interrupt this event with fireworks
causing a Stampede.
As they do that, two people jump off the top floor of the
shopping centre, revealed to be two young Sydneysiders,
two young women that are not known to each other,
seemingly not known to each other, but embroiled in what they believe to be
this sort of manosphere group targeting young women as well.
So Dahlia is quickly uncovering that her niece is much more involved than she
previously thought.
And as the investigation continues in the lead up towards the climactic sort of and
between these two events kind of coinciding it depending upon what Dolly
is going to find out and happening with her niece as well.
So interesting to hear a man writing about the manosphere.
We talked to in previous years to Ashley Collegium Blunt,
who writes about the manosphere as well in a crime sort of setting.
So I'm interested in in what you wanted to say about that.
Well, I think that the the manosphere is
something that kind of is on the rise.
I don't think that it's kind of I think people kind of laugh that and you kind of
get these figures like Andrew Tate, where people because of what they say is
so absurd and they're easy to dismiss.
I think that that's the, the alarming and I think the Andrew Tate,
perhaps he's had his, his time and his, you know, it's,
it's he doesn't have as much of A sort of following or he trends as much as he did.
But I think that he exemplifies the kind of people that do rise up.
So they flash in a pan because of how extreme they are.
But when they're around, they come out in such clout and so much
of an influence that that kind of thing can't be just laughed at and dismissed.
And they always appeal like any sort of despot.
They always appeal to whom I believe is the people that are responsible for kind
of like the world's worst.
Well, the history's worst travesties and
trustees is is the angry young men.
So you'll appeal to this group of angry young men and they're the ones that can,
you know, lead an uprising and essentially kind of
point you into position of power.
It's not too outrageous for this sort of thing to happen.
I think this is the new generation that's experiencing this sort of thing.
This is this is what this is now is what Hitler had with the brown shirts and
enlight of the night of the long knives and sort of thing.
I truly think that there's a line direct correlation between the two.
I was going to say, I'm not sure if it's special to our time
or if it's kind of a resurgent because these figures that you're talking about
and they're compelling if you're not the kind of person who is attracted to them.
Yep.
But they are very appealing to a certain kind of people.
But there seem to be a like a constant stream of these cycles for sure figures.
I'm not sure if this is just the times that we live in or if it's always been
like this and they're just, well, I, I guess The thing is now and what people
in the manosphere would say is that men are feeling marginalised in a way that
maybe they haven't felt in the past.
And that's driving a lot of this pushback.
Definitely adding on from what you're saying,
I think there's a few different factors that are working in there from me,
from the outside kind of looking in.
So I think that you have, yeah, a lot of disenfranchised,
disillusioned young men, that feeling that they're being either
replaced or they're being punished for their sort of perceived masculinity.
So there's a, you know, masculinity in crisis.
So there's a fictional character that's kind of based on a sort of Jordan
Peterson type that kind of legitimise this of an era of academia.
So they have a book out about masculinity in crisis,
which kind of features in my novel as well.
So that's sort of as this area of legitimacy of academia,
like men perceiving that, you know, masculinities in Christ,
smallest sort of stuff, which is just really sort of hate speech
and paves the way for groups of predominantly young men.
But all the you know, this this from all ages that then become
this weaponized force.
And then so you've got that factor, but then you've also got the younger
generations as well.
So the Louis Faro new Louis Faro manosphere documentary recently and how
young people, young men particular idolise these,
these fringe dwelling sort of four leader guys.
All that sort of adds to it as well.
So you've got real young guys, young or teenage boys or children being
very impressed and being very easily led by these sort of figures.
All of which makes fertile ground for, I think what deep fake.
Hopefully I've explored and kind of start a bit of a discourse, I don't know,
like we're having right now.
Now, I understand you also write short fiction.
I do, yes.
We're very interested in short fiction.
We have a competition, short fiction competition.
So you've published some collected stories.
I've published, I've had a few out in like the Big Issue
and stuff like that.
OK.
I've had one in the Southerly.
I had one in Better than Dead's inaugural anthology as well.
So I have great love for the short story medium.
And do you typically write short crime fiction or I don't know if I'm if I'm
good enough to write.
I think that's hard.
I think that's that's that's that's really hard because short fiction I think
is actually one of the most underrated and tough actually types of writing you
could possibly do because it's by virtue of how short it is,
it's actually hard to kind of achieve.
And I feel like the best sort of short fiction is the one that you feel like
you've only got a snapshot of a much bigger story and then it keeps telling
itself to you long after you finish reading that short story.
I don't know.
But it still has to be satisfying within.
It still has to be satisfying within itself.
Yeah.
I think it is tough in particular for genre fiction to fit into short fiction.
So something like crime where you need all that set up and it's all very
character driven.
Yeah.
And there's back story and that feeds into it and all the twists and turns is
something that you can't really achieve absolutely in the shorter format.
But you obviously like to write both.
Very much.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of the short stories that I've had published,
none of which I think are straight into the the crime too much because it's like
you said, like they, you know, you need the conventions,
need the build up and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that the Sisters of Crime have a stiletto awards,
that they have a short story competition of crime.
But yeah, I'm yet to, I'm yet to tackle that.
Based.
I think it's a bit a challenge for the future.
Very much.
Well, thanks for chatting with us, Sam.
And your books are called Haze and Deepfake.
Deepfake is to follow come publication time that next year if everything keeps
going well, keeping those fingers crossed the next
draught back.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
In a minute.
This has been a special presentation of the Not Quite Right podcast in
collaboration with Words on the Ways Riders Festival.
Check the show notes For more information about Words on the Waves and the books
mentioned in this episode.
If you're new to the podcast, please join us again for our regular
episodes where we talk about media, culture, and the art of writing.
Something doesn't seem quite right.