Something doesn't seem quite right.
Welcome to Not quite right.
My name's Ed and I'm Amanda.
And we are at Words on the Waves with another interview.
And this interview is with George Kemp.
MMM.
So George Kemp brought his debut novel to Words on the Waves this year.
And it's called Soft Serve, which is an intriguing title but is,
in fact, set in a McDonald's during a Bush fire.
Intriguing set up.
And we spoke to George about the novel and the subplots and a little bit about
writing your second book.
So here is our interview with George Kemp.
We are here at Words on the Waves with George Kemp.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
So tell us why you're here.
You're part of the Inktenash panel.
I am here for the Inktenash panel.
Talk about my debut novel called Soft Surf,
which came out in Feb this year and it's about four people,
320 somethings and their dead friend's mum and they're all in regional Maccas as
bushfires close in and they're all facing some sort of reckoning with the day
outside and also with their lives.
Little queer love story going through it and they're billed as Drive Through
Chekhov is what we've done.
Is that a a personal thing for you working in a Maccas?
Is that part of your history?
I never did, no.
I never worked in a Maccas.
So I get nervous when people that have, they're gonna come and be like,
that's not how it happens.
Yeah.
How we got the chips.
Yeah.
No absolute wrong temperature on your deep fryer.
I've never worked in a Maccas, but I've worked in a Pizza Hut.
But just the experience of observing people who are working Maccas,
I think the beeping would drive me crazy.
Oh, so much beeping.
People say they hear it still.
Yeah.
Decades on, they can still hear the beeping at night.
Yeah, but you say there's a queer love story.
So is that kind of like a subplot that weaves through the book?
It is a subplot.
The the book sort of follows a few different POV's.
And two of those is 2 people in their 20s.
And they're both at very kind of different stages of their acceptance of
their sexuality.
And they're in a small town.
And so there's a there's a danger at play there.
And one of them would love for them to move to Sydney and be happy and fall in
love.
And the other one is happy in their small town nest and knows what's what and isn't
quite ready to face that.
So it's kind of about the, the snakes and ladders of,
of early queer love, you know, 2 steps forward, one step back.
There's a fire outside in the town so that they get,
it's too late to leave order from the RFS as well.
And so they're, they're all stuck there.
And then in the final section of the book, a team of RFS firefighters come into the
Mackers and try and get them out.
But everyone's got their own, their own stories, deep, deep below.
And so this is your debut novel.
You know, a lot of writers listen to our podcast
and would be interested to know what is it that sold your book, do you think?
What is it that got the attention of the publisher?
That's a good question.
I wish I knew.
It's an interesting setting concept.
It's easily explainable.
I think there's a containment to it that's interesting.
It's not a long book.
I love a short book.
I love it.
This isn't like an Agatha Christie situation in the Maccas where you know,
no, no, no, it's not, It's not so and so in the,
in the bathrooms with the Candlestick.
No, it's, it's quite a interior novel.
OK.
Have you got anything else in the pipeline planned?
I'm working away on book #2 about 5000 words or so of that one.
Also in a bit of an unusual setting, but about something quite different.
I'm kind of looking at trust and the the of, you know, trusting the experts.
And if everybody's yelling and at once and nobody's listening,
then what happens there is the is the fear that I'm trying to.
Yeah.
Explore for myself.
Yeah.
I mean, this is interesting.
A lot of authors who come for their second book, you know, you've got the one.
And then I think there can be so much pressure to sort of reproduce what was
successful the first time.
Do you feel that pressure or do you just feel driven to write what you want to
write?
I get, I feel the opposite.
I feel, I feel nervous that I'm repeating myself.
Yeah.
I also find myself being like, well, that's a similar rhythm or that's a
similar are people love seeing the same thing again, maybe new packaging.
I feel, well, certainly publishers do.
That's that's that's my understanding of the industry.
Give me the same thing but different.
I think so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it's a good attitude to have to want to do something different next time
around.
And it sounds like that's something that people are thinking about at the moment,
the death of expertise and that kind of thing.
And trust.
Yeah.
Very much so.
Where is truth exactly to find out?
Well, you've got to jump onto a panel very
shortly, so we won't keep you.
But thank you so much for speaking with us.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you very much.
This has been a special presentation of the Not Quite Right podcast in
collaboration with Words on the Waves Writers 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.