ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan has told The Advocate today that the sight of snow in his front garden in November is troubling, but at the same time, he’s wondering if one of his stories about the declining health of the Tasmanian climate and tearing of social fabric is starting to come true.
Via telephone this afternoon, the Booker Prize winner explain in very precise detail what he thought was beginning to happen.
“The spring frost burned my lawn and the postman wore gloves in the morning. His name was Steven and his father was a famous painter. But his true passion lay in greyhound racing. What he wasn’t was a mainlander, no. This man, this postman was a Tasmanian and a fine one at that, too,” said Richard.
There was a long pause.
“It began to rain and the sun dipped behind the charcoal cloud. A fine downpour like the midnight mist in London, when there’s nobody around but the sounds of a metropolis and can never find the comfy position in which to enjoy a full night’s rest,”
“We’re a month out from seeing Santa Clause in boardshorts. Call him Antipodean Santa. It’s not supposed to snow. It’s not supposed to snow and people aren’t supposed to be fighting for their lives in the cool November wind.”
Another long pause.
Our reporter asked if this was perhaps the start, a writing prompt, for another novel and Richard laughed then paused again.
“Perhaps. One about grief and societal indifference to a peril that threatens us all. Yes. Of course, there will be rain. Seaspray from the pained Tasman Sea. Wind. A bar fight at a Ulverstone pub where pool balls are thrown like missiles. End of days,”
“Anyway, it seems Steven has slipped in the snow at my front gate and he can’t get up. I’ll phone again in the autumn, when the hills around my home go to sleep.”
More to come.
