December 29, 2025 • 28 mins
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S1 (00:18):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.
S2 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Francis Keelan and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library Radio show, a
free library service for anybody who has a print disability.
And on today's show, we have behind the scenes producer
and presenter Chris Thompson, who interviews author Mary Rose Cuskelly,
(00:53):
author of The Campers, a fiction book that was released
in February of 2025. Is it Nimbin noir or is
it neighbourhood noir? You decide. And let's hear Chris Thompson
speaking with Mary Rose Cuskelly.
S3 (01:14):
And now comes the campers, which I've been trying to
get my head around. What kind of genre it is,
if this is any good. I came up with Nimby noir.
S4 (01:28):
Nimby noir is pretty good. I've been talking about it
as neighborhood noir. Ah, and I have heard or seen
other people describe it as domestic noir.
S3 (01:38):
Oh no, I like Nimby noir because there's a lot
of characters in this who do not want what's going
on to be happening in their backyards. And if it's
a noir, does that mean that the character you've created
of Sharlto is an om fatale?
S4 (01:55):
Ah, Chris, I think you've been listening to my interviews
because that's what I. Oh, really? Because that's what I've decided. Yes,
that he is. Because there is, um, while the campers
doesn't fit neatly into the crime genre as such, there
is a, you know, there's a bit of darkness at
the heart of the novel and.
S3 (02:14):
Just a bit.
S4 (02:16):
And I think there is something of the an noir.
I mean, in fatale, in In Shelter.
S3 (02:23):
Certainly as far as Lee is concerned.
S4 (02:25):
Certainly as far as our protagonist Leah is concerned, yes.
You know, he's a he's dangerous. He's a disrupter. We're
not quite there's a bit of mystery about him. We're
not quite sure what's motivating him. And he.
S3 (02:40):
And he's sexy.
S4 (02:40):
He's sexy, and he leads our protagonist astray. Or does
he or does she? You know.
S3 (02:46):
Let's not give anything away. Yeah. We're speaking about this
as though everyone knows what we're talking about. Um, give
us the little quick description of the campus with no spoilers.
S4 (02:57):
Okay, so the campus is about what happens when a
group of homeless people set up their tents in a
park next to a cozy inner city cul de sac.
S3 (03:10):
Called the drone.
S4 (03:11):
Called the drove.
S3 (03:12):
Which I like because then I get to call themselves drovers,
and they're as far from drovers as you could get.
That's right.
S4 (03:19):
So we have the drovers and we have the campers.
And essentially it's I think this the book is about
what happens when our professed values kind of slam into
a perceived threat to our quality of life. And it does,
and not intentionally, because I started this book quite a
few years ago, but it became more and more kind
(03:42):
of of the moment as I was writing, because it
does kind of not grapple with. Exactly. But, you know,
it's kind of about the well, with the housing crisis
and these kind of little tent settlements, they're becoming more
and more common in all sorts of places across Australia.
S3 (03:59):
And as happens in the book, councils deal with them
very differently.
S4 (04:02):
They do, they do. I know in Redcliffe, which of
course is just outside Brisbane and the council there recently
decided not that they were going to find people for
being homeless, but they were going to find people who
were living in the park, $8,000 for storing their private
possessions on public land.
S3 (04:21):
Wow.
S4 (04:22):
So, uh, yeah. And in Brisbane, um, Musgrave Park, which
has long been a place where Aboriginal people have camped,
and there's a bit of a homeless encampment or houseless
encampment there, and there were, um, gas barbecues and, uh,
lighting things like that, which made at least, you know,
(04:44):
people who were sleeping rough or living in tents there
could cook their dinner. The council decided that they were
going to cut the power to those facilities. Uh, and
it meant that charities who were coming there to help
feed these people also couldn't cook there. So there were fortunately,
there was such an outcry that they those facilities were reattached. But, uh, yeah, it's, um,
(05:05):
it's a problem and it's not a problem that of
course individuals can solve. You know, it's much bigger than that. But, uh,
I guess I don't know. Do we need to be
more compassionate? Does there need to be less of the
Nimby about us when, um, there's moves to build, um,
(05:26):
more denser housing in our suburbs?
S3 (05:29):
But it's one of the kind of apart from, I guess,
the central story, which is Leah's story. And we'll come
to that. What I really liked, you know, you've populated
it with really believable but also really recognizable characters who
live in The Drove. You know, I can probably find
an equivalent in my extended circle for every one of
(05:53):
those characters. They just don't all live in the same street.
So there's this sort of critical mass of people who seem,
by and large, to think they're progressive thinkers. I think
one character I don't think this is a spoiler says
at one point, you know, it's fine to put a
I voted yes sign on your front fence. But you
(06:14):
know what happens when it comes down to action? Yeah.
Behind that. And they're at odds with each other because
there are very differing opinions. And even the ones that
take the sort of, you know, maybe what we might
think about as the more acceptable, um, approach to how
to deal with the campers. It doesn't necessarily turn out
(06:37):
right or positively. Yeah. In the end, yeah.
S4 (06:41):
I mean.
S3 (06:41):
There's lots of dilemma in here.
S4 (06:43):
Yes, yes. And I suppose you know, the Drover's, um,
you know, partly just for the sake of the novel
and it's, it's a very, you know, it's a very
short cul de sac. There's only seven houses in it.
And of course, that's, you know, from a novelistic point
of view, it's just easier to write about seven households
than 20 or 25. It's a specific kind of neighborhood,
but I think a neighborhood that's recognizable to lots of people.
(07:03):
You know, there are same sex couples, there are single
parent families, people from different, you know, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
There's chooks, there's vegetable gardens, there's.
S3 (07:12):
But they also they back on to public space. Yeah.
That is really very nice.
S4 (07:20):
Yeah.
S3 (07:21):
And that they think of as their own.
S4 (07:22):
Yes they do. It's kind of they view it as
their as their backyard, as their park. And so they
feel very um concerned when these tents appear. And, you know,
some of their concerns are completely reasonable. You know, who
are these people? Do we need to be concerned about
where they're toileting? Is it hygienic? Do any of them
(07:43):
have mental health problems? You know, our children use that park.
Are they going to be syringes? You know, these are
the kind of you know, they're not concerns that are
outlandish or unreasonable. And you're right amongst the the drovers
there's a bit of a discussion. Well, you know, what
is our responsibility to these people? You know, we're Relatively affluent.
(08:03):
They obviously have very little. Do we need to engage
with them or do we just ignore them, or do
we get the police to move them on? Like what?
What should we do? And you know, there's a bit
of a debate amongst them about what's the right course
of action.
S3 (08:17):
You use both an obvious and a really clever device
for those debates. And that's the WhatsApp group. Um, obvious,
because that's now how everyone communicates. But clever because I
think it's clever. Because in that social media space, the
language and the nature of the communications is often much
(08:43):
more blunt and much more to the point than in
the face to face social setting. And so we get
those statements that, you know, we often hear about people going, oh,
if I could take that back, if it wasn't just
out there, you know, people say stuff in the WhatsApp
group that is nasty, is mean, is judgmental. Uh, well,
(09:05):
you don't think they'd say if they were in the
room with them?
S4 (09:08):
Yes. And it's also hard to inject nuance into, like,
a message group like that.
S3 (09:13):
There's no sarcasm. There's no irony.
S4 (09:16):
No.
S3 (09:16):
And so there's lots of. I didn't really mean, you know.
S4 (09:18):
Yeah. You can kind of like, insert an emoji, but
sometimes it's like, oh, you're being sarcastic or you're being,
you know, smart ass, like what's happening here. So yeah.
And I think, yeah. So it's a shorthand and a
way to kind of, um, build a bit of, you know,
characterization for the different people who live in the droves.
So and also, yeah, because it's, it's a very common, uh, thing,
(09:41):
you know, and I'm a member of several kind of
forums like that. You know, there's a, there's a hard
rubbish rescue group, there's a, you know, good karma network. There's,
you know, my neighborhood has an email list. You know,
I've got friends who live in an apartment building, and
there's a WhatsApp group for all the apartment Our owners
and people who live in there. So yeah. So it's
(10:03):
kind of it is a feature of, of modern life that, um,
you know, translated easily to the novel and was kind
of a way to do all those things I wanted
it to do.
S3 (10:13):
Leah, our hero, is part of that WhatsApp group. Uh, Moses,
her partner, not so keen on the on the social media. Um,
they have two kids. Um, she's not that keen on
the WhatsApp group herself. She tries to do the impossible,
which is stay distant when you're in a like you're there. Um,
(10:38):
but she does, uh, really moderate the level to which
he interacts. Um, which again, I think is quite a
clever device because we, as the reader then know that
she knows stuff. Um, but she's not giving stuff away
to the rest of the group, which, It really creates
(11:00):
some interesting tensions in the real world when they're interacting
with each other.
S4 (11:06):
Yes, I think.
S3 (11:07):
She's an interesting character.
S4 (11:09):
She's a bit of a lurker. Leia. You know, she
kind of likes to, you know, I don't know that
I'd be friends with Leia in real life. Like, she's
she's a, you know, I think she there's a lot
going on in her head, but she kind of, you know,
keeps everything tamped down a bit, I think. And she
kind of sets little, uh, landmines for herself, which tend
(11:31):
to blow up and, um. Yeah, so I didn't. I
kind of wanted her to be. Yes, a little bit
removed because she has that, you know, she while she
is part of the drove, she is also an observer
of what happens on the drove.
S3 (11:47):
And she seems to be in a sort of constant
state of conflict with her interior life, which makes her ill,
at ease and often uncomfortable in her exterior life, both
at home and in the drove with her neighbors. Which
(12:10):
is why the arrival of the and the arrival of
the campus is great. It's like a medieval pageant when
when we first spot them. Um. Uh, the arrival of
the campus seems like a siren call to her that
there is a there is a life that is free and, um,
(12:32):
relatively uncomplicated and not bound by responsibility and obligation, which,
to her great distress, she seems to find appealing. Yes.
S4 (12:45):
Yes. Leah's kind of one of those people who thinks,
you know, things have happened to her, and she's kind
of been pushed or encouraged in certain ways or, you know,
You know her in her relationship and her job and
her just. And she's come to this point where she's got,
you know, she's got two children, you know, a husband,
a house and like, oh, how did I get here?
(13:06):
And I'm not sure. I'm sure, I'm not sure that
I actually chose any of it. So she's in a
bit of an uncomfortable place in her life. And I
guess the the way the campers appear, you know, you're right.
It is a bit of a siren call. It's a
bit of a, you know, and no one else on
the droves seems to see that that first glimpse.
S3 (13:29):
Except maybe I didn't see that first glimpse. Yeah. Um,
I thought you were going to say, you know, views
them in the same way. Yeah. And I was going
to say, except Miguel. Miguel, who's the who's who's the
sort of stepson who comes to stay and becomes quite
involved in the story.
S4 (13:47):
Yes. And, um, yeah. So I so I suppose I
wanted that first, you know, often, you know. You know,
people who we see living on the street, there's often this,
you know, there's a kind of invisibility to them. I
think partly that we impose on them, you know, often we'll,
you know, we walk past or, you know, they're, you know,
(14:09):
they're huddled in doorways or they're, you know, in little
corners by, you know, by the creek or whatever. And
I suppose I just wanted that first glimpse of them
to be, you know, that they're kind of, you know,
that they are going to be imposing themselves on this story.
But mentioning McGill, too, there's there's, you know, I think
(14:30):
the way we live, you know, there's this, you know,
we're in this housing crisis. There's a cost of living crisis.
There seems to be this widening gap between those who
have enough or more than enough, and those who have very,
very little. And sometimes it seems that that kind of
gap is hard to bridge. And so I was kind
(14:52):
of Miguel is one of the characters who kind of
tries to, you know, reach across that that, that, that bridge.
I mean, that that gap, I suppose so. And, um.
S3 (15:04):
In a much more successful way than anyone else. Yes. Yes.
S4 (15:08):
A much more successful than anybody else does. Um, and
and I think, you know, he, um, Miguel, in some ways,
you know, he appears when we first meet Miguel. He's
kind of seems kind of selfish and callow. And because,
you know, he's he's a young man and, um, he's,
you know, moved in with his father and his father's
second family because his mother's had enough of him. And, um,
(15:32):
and I think we, you know, we see his kind
of maturity and, uh, and his, you know, in some ways,
he's a bit of a counterpoint to how the drovers
try to engage with the campus.
S3 (15:44):
Um, uh, tossing up how much to to give away. Um,
No I won't. I won't say anything much more about
the story or the characters, because I think part of
the delight is discovering them. You know, it's kind of
getting to know them. What I did want to know, though,
is the process of writing a book like The Campers,
(16:07):
compared to writing the Cane in the cane. It's a
story about something has happened, and the story is about
becoming involved in trying to solve, trying to understand, trying
to find an answer to something that has already happened
(16:28):
before the book starts. So it's a it's got a
kind of back story that's important to the forward momentum
of the story. This is the opposite for me. I
spent the whole book going, something is going to happen.
So it's much more malevolent. Is that too harsh a
(16:49):
word in in its undertone. In the maybe, foreboding is
a better word than malevolent, um, in the sense that
I every scene I'm prepared that something's going to happen. Um,
and eventually it does. Yeah. Um, and let's not say
how or why or who, um, is that a different
(17:11):
writing process to be pursuing something in a forward direction
rather than dealing with something? Or is it just all
the same?
S4 (17:21):
I certainly don't think about it in those terms when
I'm writing it, although I will say I found The
Camp is really a really difficult novel to write, and
I'm not exactly sure why. Um. Some. Oh yeah. And yeah.
But certainly I wasn't thinking about I mean, I knew that, yes,
(17:45):
there was, you know, the campers would appear and that
was going to make something happen. And I kind of
had a bit of a, you know, I had an
idea what that would look like. Um, and so it
was just a process of, okay, so I have to
I have to get there and have enough kind of
(18:05):
interest and, you know, have a little bit of a
subplot and, you know, to make it, you know, a
compelling read, not just, um, oh, you know, like, it's
certainly not a, um, a treatise or a or an
issues novel, I don't think. You know, it's also just,
you know, I'm hoping that it's a compelling read that people, um,
you know, get into the characters. Oh, well. Thank you. So, yeah.
(18:27):
So I don't in terms of, um, the writing, my
writing process. Yeah. It's not because I don't tend to
I don't particularly when I start, I don't start plotting
everything out. I just kind of have a opening image.
And if I'm lucky, I kind of know what I'm
writing towards. But sometimes I don't. And then at a
(18:48):
certain point, I have to go. Okay. So now I
need to. Let's look at what I've got. Because often
I'll write. You know, I write scenes out of order. Um,
and then I have to try and squeeze them into
some kind of narrative shape and often at that point. Okay,
so I need to just to step back and start, okay,
trying to plot something.
S3 (19:05):
Because there's a lot there's a lot in the story
that is. Understood more deeply when we understood things that
have happened in the past of the characters or the
place or, you know, and I guess it's always the
trick of the writer deciding, when do I tell the
(19:26):
reader that little bit, you know, you don't front load
us with everything that's come before, um, and, and the
timing of knowing what this character did before they were
here or, you know, like, that kind of stuff becomes
really important, I guess, to the tension of the story
(19:47):
itself and the enjoyment of the reader and our imaginative
forward thinking about what might come in the remainder of
the book is that is that that strikes me as
an enjoyable process to go. I know this thing about them.
The reader doesn't know yet. Um, okay. Now I'll let
you know. Is that is that is that fun?
S4 (20:10):
Look. It depends. I often say, you know, I'm a
writer who I don't enjoy writing that much. I like
having written. Yes. So sometimes it's when you look back
and go, oh, actually that works. That's good. Now I
can kind of enjoy it. So often it's just, you know,
it is a bit of, um, you know, sometimes it's it's,
you know, it's just a bit of work and sometimes,
(20:32):
you know, I'm a member of a couple of writing groups, so,
you know, people will read stuff and, um, and that's
always helpful just to have another perspective for some, you know,
just to say, well, I don't understand, you know, why
they That would act that way or whatever. And that's
something I need to kind of work, you know, work
that out or, you know, work on that character. And, um, so, yeah,
(20:56):
it is enjoyable for me when looking back and go,
oh yeah, that works. So yeah. So it's more in
the aftermath that I kind of, um, you know, take
my pleasure in it.
S3 (21:09):
Well, I have to say I took pleasure in it. Um,
it's a great book. Um. Thank you. And, you know,
I was thinking, as I was reading it, one of
the things I really like about your writing is you
don't strike me as someone who kind of hits on
something that works and goes, well, I better recreate that
in a different setting in my next novel. So if
(21:31):
I think about the differences between Wedderburn and the Caine
and the campers, you know, they're all quite different, um,
files and genres in a way, but there is a
sort of through line, which is you. Um, which does
connect them, but makes me curious as to what number
(21:55):
four is going to be.
S4 (21:58):
Well, I'm actually well, because when I was writing the
campers and I was saying to my agent, I don't
think it's crime. Am I a crime writer now? Because
and she was and she said, look, just, you know,
just write what you want and we'll worry about that later. And, uh,
so and so when I, you know, when I was
talking to my publisher about, you know what? You know
(22:19):
what what are we calling it? And so we, you know,
neighborhood noir was what we came up with. Um, but
I but and I think I'm going back to crime
proper in the next one. Um, in the cane, there
was a, there was a female cop who didn't have, like,
a huge, um, you know, she wasn't a major character,
(22:42):
I guess, but I think it's going to be ten
years into the future. So it'll be 1980s Brisbane. So
just prior to the Fitzgerald Inquiry. So in the kind
of bad old days of, you know, police corruption and
political malfeasance and, um, there was just. Yeah, when I
was promoting the cane, actually, I had a conversation with
(23:04):
a copper who came up to me and, um, just well, actually,
he he told me this. He didn't tell me the
whole story, but he was just he he mentioned something
that had happened to this.
S3 (23:15):
Did it start with you should write about.
S4 (23:17):
Well, it was more like, ah, you know, about blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, no. But anyway, so it was
this the first female detective in Queensland. Anyway, her story
and what had happened to her and um, and it
was at, it was at this festival in Townsville. And
I was like I said, oh, can I just, you know,
take your phone number and I'll call. And he was like,
(23:39):
no way. He said. I'm about to retire.
S5 (23:41):
I'm going to talk to him.
S4 (23:43):
So anyways, I had to go and find out stuff
all by myself. But, um, so I think, you know, again,
it'll be kind of inspired by that story, I think. Um, yeah.
So I'm kind of working on that at the moment.
S2 (23:59):
And that was Chris Thomson speaking with author Mary Rose Cuskelly.
And just a reminder, if you wanted to listen to
Behind the Scenes, you can hear Chris and his team
speaking about the arts in the community on Mondays, 9 p.m..
And that's repeated on Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. and that's
behind the scenes. And I thought I'd play a sample
(24:21):
now of The Campers by Mary Rose Cuskelly. So Leah
has a good life. She lives on the drove and
in his city, in a city cul de sac with
her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbors,
the drovers, look out for each other. Theirs is a safe,
community oriented enclave, and that's the way it's going to
stay when itinerant set up camp in their park. Some
(24:43):
of the drovers are unsettled, some are outraged, and all
of them want the campers to move on. Not even Sholto,
the camper's charismatic leader, can put their fears to rest.
Why is Sholto handsome, charming, and apparently with other options
living in a tent? And why has he chosen to
pitch it beside the drove? And why is Lee attempted
to put her family and her comfortable life at risk
(25:04):
when Sholto turns his wolf like gaze towards her? Let's
hear a sample of The Campers by Mary Rose Cuskelly.
It's narrated by Brigid Gallacher.
S6 (25:15):
It was Snow White. Leah recognised the buttercup yellow skirt,
fitted blue bodice and red pained sleeves from the animated
Disney version she'd watched with her sister Neve when they
were kids. She couldn't remember who'd given the DVD to them.
It wasn't something Geraldine would have ever thought to buy
for her daughters. This version of The Fairest of Them
(25:36):
All was a far cry from the creamy cartoon girl
that Leah and Neve had wept over as she lay
in her pristine glass coffin. This was fairy tale Princess
turned feral black dreadlocks hung to their shoulders, chest hair
erupted from the bodice, neckline, muscular legs and arms propelled
(25:56):
them forward. The torn sleeves of the dress flapped about
the swell of their biceps. Leah could tell that even
from behind the large plate glass window looking out onto
Gideon's paddock on the opposite side of the road, it
was barely light outside the tops of the tallest eucalypts
in the park, only just illuminated by the sun's rays.
(26:19):
But Leah could now see other bodies resolving out of
the shadows. A sparse, ragtag crew of three trailed behind
Snow White. One of them, in more or less conventional dress,
pushed a supermarket shopping trolley. Its wheels bumped across every
rock and route jutting above the desiccated grass setting to
(26:40):
clatter whatever was in the trolley trash or treasure. Two
distorted animal shapes brought up the rear. There was a
sauntering rabbit, or at least someone in a rabbit onesie.
The hood of the garment was pulled low over its face,
ears sagging and skewed hooks behind the rabbit capered, a
slight figure wearing a skirt that reached her ankles, and
(27:02):
a singlet top that barely covered her breasts, an oversized
bird's head, possibly papier maché with a hooked beak and
a smattering of feathers swayed atop her neck. The bird
woman staggered, her arms, held out at her sides, drunk.
Leah thought.
S2 (27:21):
And that was the campus by Mary Rose Cuskelly. And
Mary Rose is one word. M a r y r
o m a r y r o Cuskelly is c
k e y c k e l y. That book
(27:41):
goes for 8.5 hours. And we also have the book
that she mentioned in that interview, the cane that's also
available in the library collection. And we look forward to
what Mary Rose Cuskelly will be offering in the future.
(28:05):
Many thanks for joining us on Hear This today. I'm
Frances Keeland. If you would like to contact the library.
They're on their break at the moment, but you can
leave a message by calling 1300Â 654Â 656 1300Â 654Â 656. Or you can
email library at that's library at Vision Australia. Have a
(28:27):
lovely rest of the week and we'll be back next
week with more. Hear this.
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.
S2 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Francis Keelan and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library Radio show, a
free library service for anybody who has a print disability.
And on today's show, we have behind the scenes producer
and presenter Chris Thompson, who interviews author Mary Rose Cuskelly,
(00:53):
author of The Campers, a fiction book that was released
in February of 2025. Is it Nimbin noir or is
it neighbourhood noir? You decide. And let's hear Chris Thompson
speaking with Mary Rose Cuskelly.
S3 (01:14):
And now comes the campers, which I've been trying to
get my head around. What kind of genre it is,
if this is any good. I came up with Nimby noir.
S4 (01:28):
Nimby noir is pretty good. I've been talking about it
as neighborhood noir. Ah, and I have heard or seen
other people describe it as domestic noir.
S3 (01:38):
Oh no, I like Nimby noir because there's a lot
of characters in this who do not want what's going
on to be happening in their backyards. And if it's
a noir, does that mean that the character you've created
of Sharlto is an om fatale?
S4 (01:55):
Ah, Chris, I think you've been listening to my interviews
because that's what I. Oh, really? Because that's what I've decided. Yes,
that he is. Because there is, um, while the campers
doesn't fit neatly into the crime genre as such, there
is a, you know, there's a bit of darkness at
the heart of the novel and.
S3 (02:14):
Just a bit.
S4 (02:16):
And I think there is something of the an noir.
I mean, in fatale, in In Shelter.
S3 (02:23):
Certainly as far as Lee is concerned.
S4 (02:25):
Certainly as far as our protagonist Leah is concerned, yes.
You know, he's a he's dangerous. He's a disrupter. We're
not quite there's a bit of mystery about him. We're
not quite sure what's motivating him. And he.
S3 (02:40):
And he's sexy.
S4 (02:40):
He's sexy, and he leads our protagonist astray. Or does
he or does she? You know.
S3 (02:46):
Let's not give anything away. Yeah. We're speaking about this
as though everyone knows what we're talking about. Um, give
us the little quick description of the campus with no spoilers.
S4 (02:57):
Okay, so the campus is about what happens when a
group of homeless people set up their tents in a
park next to a cozy inner city cul de sac.
S3 (03:10):
Called the drone.
S4 (03:11):
Called the drove.
S3 (03:12):
Which I like because then I get to call themselves drovers,
and they're as far from drovers as you could get.
That's right.
S4 (03:19):
So we have the drovers and we have the campers.
And essentially it's I think this the book is about
what happens when our professed values kind of slam into
a perceived threat to our quality of life. And it does,
and not intentionally, because I started this book quite a
few years ago, but it became more and more kind
(03:42):
of of the moment as I was writing, because it
does kind of not grapple with. Exactly. But, you know,
it's kind of about the well, with the housing crisis
and these kind of little tent settlements, they're becoming more
and more common in all sorts of places across Australia.
S3 (03:59):
And as happens in the book, councils deal with them
very differently.
S4 (04:02):
They do, they do. I know in Redcliffe, which of
course is just outside Brisbane and the council there recently
decided not that they were going to find people for
being homeless, but they were going to find people who
were living in the park, $8,000 for storing their private
possessions on public land.
S3 (04:21):
Wow.
S4 (04:22):
So, uh, yeah. And in Brisbane, um, Musgrave Park, which
has long been a place where Aboriginal people have camped,
and there's a bit of a homeless encampment or houseless
encampment there, and there were, um, gas barbecues and, uh,
lighting things like that, which made at least, you know,
(04:44):
people who were sleeping rough or living in tents there
could cook their dinner. The council decided that they were
going to cut the power to those facilities. Uh, and
it meant that charities who were coming there to help
feed these people also couldn't cook there. So there were fortunately,
there was such an outcry that they those facilities were reattached. But, uh, yeah, it's, um,
(05:05):
it's a problem and it's not a problem that of
course individuals can solve. You know, it's much bigger than that. But, uh,
I guess I don't know. Do we need to be
more compassionate? Does there need to be less of the
Nimby about us when, um, there's moves to build, um,
(05:26):
more denser housing in our suburbs?
S3 (05:29):
But it's one of the kind of apart from, I guess,
the central story, which is Leah's story. And we'll come
to that. What I really liked, you know, you've populated
it with really believable but also really recognizable characters who
live in The Drove. You know, I can probably find
an equivalent in my extended circle for every one of
(05:53):
those characters. They just don't all live in the same street.
So there's this sort of critical mass of people who seem,
by and large, to think they're progressive thinkers. I think
one character I don't think this is a spoiler says
at one point, you know, it's fine to put a
I voted yes sign on your front fence. But you
(06:14):
know what happens when it comes down to action? Yeah.
Behind that. And they're at odds with each other because
there are very differing opinions. And even the ones that
take the sort of, you know, maybe what we might
think about as the more acceptable, um, approach to how
to deal with the campers. It doesn't necessarily turn out
(06:37):
right or positively. Yeah. In the end, yeah.
S4 (06:41):
I mean.
S3 (06:41):
There's lots of dilemma in here.
S4 (06:43):
Yes, yes. And I suppose you know, the Drover's, um,
you know, partly just for the sake of the novel
and it's, it's a very, you know, it's a very
short cul de sac. There's only seven houses in it.
And of course, that's, you know, from a novelistic point
of view, it's just easier to write about seven households
than 20 or 25. It's a specific kind of neighborhood,
but I think a neighborhood that's recognizable to lots of people.
(07:03):
You know, there are same sex couples, there are single
parent families, people from different, you know, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
There's chooks, there's vegetable gardens, there's.
S3 (07:12):
But they also they back on to public space. Yeah.
That is really very nice.
S4 (07:20):
Yeah.
S3 (07:21):
And that they think of as their own.
S4 (07:22):
Yes they do. It's kind of they view it as
their as their backyard, as their park. And so they
feel very um concerned when these tents appear. And, you know,
some of their concerns are completely reasonable. You know, who
are these people? Do we need to be concerned about
where they're toileting? Is it hygienic? Do any of them
(07:43):
have mental health problems? You know, our children use that park.
Are they going to be syringes? You know, these are
the kind of you know, they're not concerns that are
outlandish or unreasonable. And you're right amongst the the drovers
there's a bit of a discussion. Well, you know, what
is our responsibility to these people? You know, we're Relatively affluent.
(08:03):
They obviously have very little. Do we need to engage
with them or do we just ignore them, or do
we get the police to move them on? Like what?
What should we do? And you know, there's a bit
of a debate amongst them about what's the right course
of action.
S3 (08:17):
You use both an obvious and a really clever device
for those debates. And that's the WhatsApp group. Um, obvious,
because that's now how everyone communicates. But clever because I
think it's clever. Because in that social media space, the
language and the nature of the communications is often much
(08:43):
more blunt and much more to the point than in
the face to face social setting. And so we get
those statements that, you know, we often hear about people going, oh,
if I could take that back, if it wasn't just
out there, you know, people say stuff in the WhatsApp
group that is nasty, is mean, is judgmental. Uh, well,
(09:05):
you don't think they'd say if they were in the
room with them?
S4 (09:08):
Yes. And it's also hard to inject nuance into, like,
a message group like that.
S3 (09:13):
There's no sarcasm. There's no irony.
S4 (09:16):
No.
S3 (09:16):
And so there's lots of. I didn't really mean, you know.
S4 (09:18):
Yeah. You can kind of like, insert an emoji, but
sometimes it's like, oh, you're being sarcastic or you're being,
you know, smart ass, like what's happening here. So yeah.
And I think, yeah. So it's a shorthand and a
way to kind of, um, build a bit of, you know,
characterization for the different people who live in the droves.
So and also, yeah, because it's, it's a very common, uh, thing,
(09:41):
you know, and I'm a member of several kind of
forums like that. You know, there's a, there's a hard
rubbish rescue group, there's a, you know, good karma network. There's,
you know, my neighborhood has an email list. You know,
I've got friends who live in an apartment building, and
there's a WhatsApp group for all the apartment Our owners
and people who live in there. So yeah. So it's
(10:03):
kind of it is a feature of, of modern life that, um,
you know, translated easily to the novel and was kind
of a way to do all those things I wanted
it to do.
S3 (10:13):
Leah, our hero, is part of that WhatsApp group. Uh, Moses,
her partner, not so keen on the on the social media. Um,
they have two kids. Um, she's not that keen on
the WhatsApp group herself. She tries to do the impossible,
which is stay distant when you're in a like you're there. Um,
(10:38):
but she does, uh, really moderate the level to which
he interacts. Um, which again, I think is quite a
clever device because we, as the reader then know that
she knows stuff. Um, but she's not giving stuff away
to the rest of the group, which, It really creates
(11:00):
some interesting tensions in the real world when they're interacting
with each other.
S4 (11:06):
Yes, I think.
S3 (11:07):
She's an interesting character.
S4 (11:09):
She's a bit of a lurker. Leia. You know, she
kind of likes to, you know, I don't know that
I'd be friends with Leia in real life. Like, she's
she's a, you know, I think she there's a lot
going on in her head, but she kind of, you know,
keeps everything tamped down a bit, I think. And she
kind of sets little, uh, landmines for herself, which tend
(11:31):
to blow up and, um. Yeah, so I didn't. I
kind of wanted her to be. Yes, a little bit
removed because she has that, you know, she while she
is part of the drove, she is also an observer
of what happens on the drove.
S3 (11:47):
And she seems to be in a sort of constant
state of conflict with her interior life, which makes her ill,
at ease and often uncomfortable in her exterior life, both
at home and in the drove with her neighbors. Which
(12:10):
is why the arrival of the and the arrival of
the campus is great. It's like a medieval pageant when
when we first spot them. Um. Uh, the arrival of
the campus seems like a siren call to her that
there is a there is a life that is free and, um,
(12:32):
relatively uncomplicated and not bound by responsibility and obligation, which,
to her great distress, she seems to find appealing. Yes.
S4 (12:45):
Yes. Leah's kind of one of those people who thinks,
you know, things have happened to her, and she's kind
of been pushed or encouraged in certain ways or, you know,
You know her in her relationship and her job and
her just. And she's come to this point where she's got,
you know, she's got two children, you know, a husband,
a house and like, oh, how did I get here?
(13:06):
And I'm not sure. I'm sure, I'm not sure that
I actually chose any of it. So she's in a
bit of an uncomfortable place in her life. And I
guess the the way the campers appear, you know, you're right.
It is a bit of a siren call. It's a
bit of a, you know, and no one else on
the droves seems to see that that first glimpse.
S3 (13:29):
Except maybe I didn't see that first glimpse. Yeah. Um,
I thought you were going to say, you know, views
them in the same way. Yeah. And I was going
to say, except Miguel. Miguel, who's the who's who's the
sort of stepson who comes to stay and becomes quite
involved in the story.
S4 (13:47):
Yes. And, um, yeah. So I so I suppose I
wanted that first, you know, often, you know. You know,
people who we see living on the street, there's often this,
you know, there's a kind of invisibility to them. I
think partly that we impose on them, you know, often we'll,
you know, we walk past or, you know, they're, you know,
(14:09):
they're huddled in doorways or they're, you know, in little
corners by, you know, by the creek or whatever. And
I suppose I just wanted that first glimpse of them
to be, you know, that they're kind of, you know,
that they are going to be imposing themselves on this story.
But mentioning McGill, too, there's there's, you know, I think
(14:30):
the way we live, you know, there's this, you know,
we're in this housing crisis. There's a cost of living crisis.
There seems to be this widening gap between those who
have enough or more than enough, and those who have very,
very little. And sometimes it seems that that kind of
gap is hard to bridge. And so I was kind
(14:52):
of Miguel is one of the characters who kind of
tries to, you know, reach across that that, that, that bridge.
I mean, that that gap, I suppose so. And, um.
S3 (15:04):
In a much more successful way than anyone else. Yes. Yes.
S4 (15:08):
A much more successful than anybody else does. Um, and
and I think, you know, he, um, Miguel, in some ways,
you know, he appears when we first meet Miguel. He's
kind of seems kind of selfish and callow. And because,
you know, he's he's a young man and, um, he's,
you know, moved in with his father and his father's
second family because his mother's had enough of him. And, um,
(15:32):
and I think we, you know, we see his kind
of maturity and, uh, and his, you know, in some ways,
he's a bit of a counterpoint to how the drovers
try to engage with the campus.
S3 (15:44):
Um, uh, tossing up how much to to give away. Um,
No I won't. I won't say anything much more about
the story or the characters, because I think part of
the delight is discovering them. You know, it's kind of
getting to know them. What I did want to know, though,
is the process of writing a book like The Campers,
(16:07):
compared to writing the Cane in the cane. It's a
story about something has happened, and the story is about
becoming involved in trying to solve, trying to understand, trying
to find an answer to something that has already happened
(16:28):
before the book starts. So it's a it's got a
kind of back story that's important to the forward momentum
of the story. This is the opposite for me. I
spent the whole book going, something is going to happen.
So it's much more malevolent. Is that too harsh a
(16:49):
word in in its undertone. In the maybe, foreboding is
a better word than malevolent, um, in the sense that
I every scene I'm prepared that something's going to happen. Um,
and eventually it does. Yeah. Um, and let's not say
how or why or who, um, is that a different
(17:11):
writing process to be pursuing something in a forward direction
rather than dealing with something? Or is it just all
the same?
S4 (17:21):
I certainly don't think about it in those terms when
I'm writing it, although I will say I found The
Camp is really a really difficult novel to write, and
I'm not exactly sure why. Um. Some. Oh yeah. And yeah.
But certainly I wasn't thinking about I mean, I knew that, yes,
(17:45):
there was, you know, the campers would appear and that
was going to make something happen. And I kind of
had a bit of a, you know, I had an
idea what that would look like. Um, and so it
was just a process of, okay, so I have to
I have to get there and have enough kind of
(18:05):
interest and, you know, have a little bit of a
subplot and, you know, to make it, you know, a
compelling read, not just, um, oh, you know, like, it's
certainly not a, um, a treatise or a or an
issues novel, I don't think. You know, it's also just,
you know, I'm hoping that it's a compelling read that people, um,
you know, get into the characters. Oh, well. Thank you. So, yeah.
(18:27):
So I don't in terms of, um, the writing, my
writing process. Yeah. It's not because I don't tend to
I don't particularly when I start, I don't start plotting
everything out. I just kind of have a opening image.
And if I'm lucky, I kind of know what I'm
writing towards. But sometimes I don't. And then at a
(18:48):
certain point, I have to go. Okay. So now I
need to. Let's look at what I've got. Because often
I'll write. You know, I write scenes out of order. Um,
and then I have to try and squeeze them into
some kind of narrative shape and often at that point. Okay,
so I need to just to step back and start, okay,
trying to plot something.
S3 (19:05):
Because there's a lot there's a lot in the story
that is. Understood more deeply when we understood things that
have happened in the past of the characters or the
place or, you know, and I guess it's always the
trick of the writer deciding, when do I tell the
(19:26):
reader that little bit, you know, you don't front load
us with everything that's come before, um, and, and the
timing of knowing what this character did before they were
here or, you know, like, that kind of stuff becomes
really important, I guess, to the tension of the story
(19:47):
itself and the enjoyment of the reader and our imaginative
forward thinking about what might come in the remainder of
the book is that is that that strikes me as
an enjoyable process to go. I know this thing about them.
The reader doesn't know yet. Um, okay. Now I'll let
you know. Is that is that is that fun?
S4 (20:10):
Look. It depends. I often say, you know, I'm a
writer who I don't enjoy writing that much. I like
having written. Yes. So sometimes it's when you look back
and go, oh, actually that works. That's good. Now I
can kind of enjoy it. So often it's just, you know,
it is a bit of, um, you know, sometimes it's it's,
you know, it's just a bit of work and sometimes,
(20:32):
you know, I'm a member of a couple of writing groups, so,
you know, people will read stuff and, um, and that's
always helpful just to have another perspective for some, you know,
just to say, well, I don't understand, you know, why
they That would act that way or whatever. And that's
something I need to kind of work, you know, work
that out or, you know, work on that character. And, um, so, yeah,
(20:56):
it is enjoyable for me when looking back and go,
oh yeah, that works. So yeah. So it's more in
the aftermath that I kind of, um, you know, take
my pleasure in it.
S3 (21:09):
Well, I have to say I took pleasure in it. Um,
it's a great book. Um. Thank you. And, you know,
I was thinking, as I was reading it, one of
the things I really like about your writing is you
don't strike me as someone who kind of hits on
something that works and goes, well, I better recreate that
in a different setting in my next novel. So if
(21:31):
I think about the differences between Wedderburn and the Caine
and the campers, you know, they're all quite different, um,
files and genres in a way, but there is a
sort of through line, which is you. Um, which does
connect them, but makes me curious as to what number
(21:55):
four is going to be.
S4 (21:58):
Well, I'm actually well, because when I was writing the
campers and I was saying to my agent, I don't
think it's crime. Am I a crime writer now? Because
and she was and she said, look, just, you know,
just write what you want and we'll worry about that later. And, uh,
so and so when I, you know, when I was
talking to my publisher about, you know what? You know
(22:19):
what what are we calling it? And so we, you know,
neighborhood noir was what we came up with. Um, but
I but and I think I'm going back to crime
proper in the next one. Um, in the cane, there
was a, there was a female cop who didn't have, like,
a huge, um, you know, she wasn't a major character,
(22:42):
I guess, but I think it's going to be ten
years into the future. So it'll be 1980s Brisbane. So
just prior to the Fitzgerald Inquiry. So in the kind
of bad old days of, you know, police corruption and
political malfeasance and, um, there was just. Yeah, when I
was promoting the cane, actually, I had a conversation with
(23:04):
a copper who came up to me and, um, just well, actually,
he he told me this. He didn't tell me the
whole story, but he was just he he mentioned something
that had happened to this.
S3 (23:15):
Did it start with you should write about.
S4 (23:17):
Well, it was more like, ah, you know, about blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, no. But anyway, so it was
this the first female detective in Queensland. Anyway, her story
and what had happened to her and um, and it
was at, it was at this festival in Townsville. And
I was like I said, oh, can I just, you know,
take your phone number and I'll call. And he was like,
(23:39):
no way. He said. I'm about to retire.
S5 (23:41):
I'm going to talk to him.
S4 (23:43):
So anyways, I had to go and find out stuff
all by myself. But, um, so I think, you know, again,
it'll be kind of inspired by that story, I think. Um, yeah.
So I'm kind of working on that at the moment.
S2 (23:59):
And that was Chris Thomson speaking with author Mary Rose Cuskelly.
And just a reminder, if you wanted to listen to
Behind the Scenes, you can hear Chris and his team
speaking about the arts in the community on Mondays, 9 p.m..
And that's repeated on Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. and that's
behind the scenes. And I thought I'd play a sample
(24:21):
now of The Campers by Mary Rose Cuskelly. So Leah
has a good life. She lives on the drove and
in his city, in a city cul de sac with
her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbors,
the drovers, look out for each other. Theirs is a safe,
community oriented enclave, and that's the way it's going to
stay when itinerant set up camp in their park. Some
(24:43):
of the drovers are unsettled, some are outraged, and all
of them want the campers to move on. Not even Sholto,
the camper's charismatic leader, can put their fears to rest.
Why is Sholto handsome, charming, and apparently with other options
living in a tent? And why has he chosen to
pitch it beside the drove? And why is Lee attempted
to put her family and her comfortable life at risk
(25:04):
when Sholto turns his wolf like gaze towards her? Let's
hear a sample of The Campers by Mary Rose Cuskelly.
It's narrated by Brigid Gallacher.
S6 (25:15):
It was Snow White. Leah recognised the buttercup yellow skirt,
fitted blue bodice and red pained sleeves from the animated
Disney version she'd watched with her sister Neve when they
were kids. She couldn't remember who'd given the DVD to them.
It wasn't something Geraldine would have ever thought to buy
for her daughters. This version of The Fairest of Them
(25:36):
All was a far cry from the creamy cartoon girl
that Leah and Neve had wept over as she lay
in her pristine glass coffin. This was fairy tale Princess
turned feral black dreadlocks hung to their shoulders, chest hair
erupted from the bodice, neckline, muscular legs and arms propelled
(25:56):
them forward. The torn sleeves of the dress flapped about
the swell of their biceps. Leah could tell that even
from behind the large plate glass window looking out onto
Gideon's paddock on the opposite side of the road, it
was barely light outside the tops of the tallest eucalypts
in the park, only just illuminated by the sun's rays.
(26:19):
But Leah could now see other bodies resolving out of
the shadows. A sparse, ragtag crew of three trailed behind
Snow White. One of them, in more or less conventional dress,
pushed a supermarket shopping trolley. Its wheels bumped across every
rock and route jutting above the desiccated grass setting to
(26:40):
clatter whatever was in the trolley trash or treasure. Two
distorted animal shapes brought up the rear. There was a
sauntering rabbit, or at least someone in a rabbit onesie.
The hood of the garment was pulled low over its face,
ears sagging and skewed hooks behind the rabbit capered, a
slight figure wearing a skirt that reached her ankles, and
(27:02):
a singlet top that barely covered her breasts, an oversized
bird's head, possibly papier maché with a hooked beak and
a smattering of feathers swayed atop her neck. The bird
woman staggered, her arms, held out at her sides, drunk.
Leah thought.
S2 (27:21):
And that was the campus by Mary Rose Cuskelly. And
Mary Rose is one word. M a r y r
o m a r y r o Cuskelly is c
k e y c k e l y. That book
(27:41):
goes for 8.5 hours. And we also have the book
that she mentioned in that interview, the cane that's also
available in the library collection. And we look forward to
what Mary Rose Cuskelly will be offering in the future.
(28:05):
Many thanks for joining us on Hear This today. I'm
Frances Keeland. If you would like to contact the library.
They're on their break at the moment, but you can
leave a message by calling 1300Â 654Â 656 1300Â 654Â 656. Or you can
email library at that's library at Vision Australia. Have a
(28:27):
lovely rest of the week and we'll be back next
week with more. Hear this.
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