Hear This 29th August 2025

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Episode Transcript

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 Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia Library radio show, where
we talk about books in the Vision Australia library collection.
Today we've got a little bit of a celebration of
our best furry friends. It was International Dogs Day on
August the 26th. I do hope you enjoy the show.

(00:58):
We're beginning today's show with a reader recommended from Andrew.
Thank you, Andrew for this. He wrote about 14 years ago.
I read this book and now I'm doing it again
for the possibly the third or fourth time. It's one
of the most disturbing, unsettling books I've ever made it through.
And he finishes with, it's been it's really a year
for disquieting books and such as This and Evil in

(01:20):
the suburbs, another book, um, about horrific crimes in New
South Wales. This is also where books, I think, have
their magic. Really interesting. I thought we'd play a sample
of Blood Meridian. Thank you so much. So Blood Meridian
or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy.

(01:41):
A novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's
westward expansion, and a subversion of the mythology of the
Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on
the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, this novel traces the
fortunes of The Kid, a 14 year old Tennessean who
stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered

(02:04):
by a band of bounty hunters and hunters, and a
market for their scalps is thriving. So, as you can see,
there would be a lot of warnings with this book,
but it has been also praised as being very beautiful
and also for rewriting that whole mythology of the Wild West.
Let's hear a sample. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. It's

(02:25):
narrated by Richard Poe.

S3 (02:28):
See the child? He's pale and thin. He wears a
thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire.
Outside lie dark turned fields. With rags of snow. And
darker woods. Beyond that harbor. Yet a few last wolves.

(02:49):
His folk are known for hewers of wood and drawers
of water. But in truth his father has been a schoolmaster.
He lies in drink. He quotes from poets whose names
are now lost. The boy crouches by the fire and
watches him. Night of your birth 33. The Leonids. They

(03:12):
were called God of the stars did fall. I looked
for blackness, holes in the heavens, the dipper stove. The
mother dead. These 14 years did incubate in her own
bosom the creature who would carry her off. The father
never speaks her name. The child doesn't know it. He

(03:36):
has a sister in this world that he will not
see again. He watches, pale and unwashed. He can neither
read nor write, and in him broods, already a taste
for mindless violence. All history present in that visage the child,
the father of the man. At 14 he runs away.

(04:01):
He will not see again the freezing kitchen house in
the pre-dawn dark, the firewood, the wash pots. He wanders
west as far as Memphis, a solitary migrant. Upon that
flat and pastoral landscape. Blacks in the fields lank and stooped,
their fingers spiderlike among the bowls of cotton, a shadowed

(04:23):
agony in the garden against the sun's declining figures. Moving
in the slower dusk across a paper skyline, a lone
dark husbandman pursuing mule and harrow down the rain blown
bottomland toward night.

S2 (04:40):
And that was a sample of Of Blood Meridian, or
the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy. Cormac
is c o m c o r m a McCarthy
is m c t mc cr t and that book

(05:01):
goes for 13 hours. There are quite a few Cormac
McCarthy books in the library collection, and I'm just doing
a little bit of a dive into Wikipedia. The novelist
was born in 1933, passed away a couple of years
ago in 2023, and his novels, plays and screenplays and
short stories span the Western post apocalyptic and southern gothic genres.

(05:26):
He's widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists.
The Orchard Keeper, his debut novel, was published in 1965.
That is also available from the library and from our
various literary grants. Because of that book, he was able
to travel to Europe, where he wrote his second novel,
Outer Dark, which we also have in the collection. Blood
Meridian was his fifth novel, published in 1985. It was

(05:50):
slow to garner a lot of attention, but since it's
been regarded late in later years as his magnum opus,
with some labelling it the Great American Novel, I've only
read one Cormac McCarthy novel because I'm a little bit
frightened to tackle these dark and violent books, but I
did read his 10th novel, The Road, which follows a

(06:11):
lone father and his young son travelling through post-apocalyptic America,
hunted by cannibals. Many of the discussions between the father
and son in the book were verbatim conversations McCarthy had
had with his son. It won international acclaim and the
Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Australian John Hillcoat directed the 2009
film adaptation starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. I remember

(06:37):
reading this book and it's not a long one and
just crying at the end of it. In fact, crying
so much, I could only read a page at a
time and would burst into tears and have to take
a little walk around the room, go back, read a
little bit more. The relationship between the father and son
is such a beautiful relationship in this book anyway. Cormac McCarthy.

(07:02):
You've convinced me. Andrew. I'm going to read Blood Meridian.
Thank you. On the theme of challenging and dark books
and possibly upsetting to some people. So just be aware
that there are triggers. This one is Last Exit to Brooklyn.
This is by Hubert Selby. This is a raw description

(07:23):
of life amongst New York's junkies, hustlers, drag queens and prostitutes.
The characters include Georgette, a hopelessly romantic and tormented transvestite. Vinny,
a disaffected and volatile youth tralala who can find no
escape from her loveless existence. And Harry, a power hungry
strike leader with a fatal secret living on the edge,

(07:46):
always walking on the wild side, their alienation and aggression
masks a desperate, deep human need for affection and kinship.
Let's hear a sample of Last Exit to Brooklyn by
Hubert Selby. It's narrated by Adam Henderson.

S4 (08:02):
They sprawled along the counter and on the chairs. Another night,
another drag of a night in the Greeks, a beat
up all night diner near the Brooklyn Army base. Once
in a while, a doggie or a seaman came in
for a hamburger and played the jukebox, but they usually
played some goddamn hillbilly record. They tried to get the

(08:24):
Greek to take those records off, but he'd tell them, no,
they come in and spend money. You sit here all
night and buy nothing. Are you kidding me? Alex, you
could retire on the money we spend in here. Scotty,
you don't pay my carfare. 24 records on the jukebox.

(08:46):
They could have any 12 they wanted, but the others
were for the customers from the base. If somebody played
a Lefty Frizzell record or some other shitkicker, they moaned,
made motions with their hands. Man, what a square. And
walked out to the street. Two jokers were throwing quarters in,

(09:06):
so they leaned against the lamppost and coffee vendors. A warm,
clear night, and they walked in small circles, dragging the
right foot slowly in the hip. Coxsackie shuffle, cigarettes hanging
from mouths, collars of sport shirts turned up in the
back down and rolled in the front, squinting, spitting, watching

(09:30):
cars roll by identifying them. Make model year. Horsepower. Overhead
valve V8 six eight 100 cylinders. Lots of horses, lots
of chrome red and amber grill lights. You see the
grill on the new Pontiac? Man, that is real sharp. Yeah,
but a lousy pickup. Can't beat a Plymouth for a pickup.

(09:54):
It can't hold the road like a Buick. Outrun any
cop in the city with a Roadmaster. If you get started.

S2 (10:01):
That was a sample of Last Exit to Brooklyn. Hubert
is spelt h e r t h b e r
b is s e b y s b y. And
that book goes for nine hours. This is a novel
from 1964 and was controversial when it first came out.

(10:23):
It depicts a harsh, gritty, and often violent portrayal of
Brooklyn's working class and marginalized communities in the 1950s. It's
a cult classic. It was written in an idiosyncratic style
that ignores most conventions of grammar. Selby wrote most of
the prose as if it were a story told him
from one friend to another at a bar, rather than

(10:44):
a novel using coarse and casual language. Hubert Selby Jr
was born in 1928. He died in 2004. Last Exit
to Brooklyn was prosecuted for obscenity in the United Kingdom
and banned in Italy, prompting defenses from many leading authors
such as Anthony Burgess, and he influenced multiple generations of writers,

(11:05):
and Hubert didn't have the easiest of lives. He dropped
out of school at the age of 15 to work
in the city docks, and then became a merchant seaman.
He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent three and a
half years in and out of hospital for treatment, but
a treatment that went severely wrong, um, led to him
being bedridden mostly for the next ten years, which is

(11:27):
where he started to write. And he said of his writing,
I write in part by ear. I hear as well
as feel and see what I am writing. I have
always been enamored with the music of the speech. In
New York, Last Exit to Brooklyn was praised by poet
Allen Ginsberg, who called it a rusty, hellish bombshell over America.

(11:48):
Selby battled with drug addiction. In 1967, he was arrested
for heroin possession and served two months in the Los
Angeles County Jail. He did get married and had two children,
and in the last 20 years of his life, Selby
taught creative writing as an adjunct professor in the Master
of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.
So just a warning. Once again, um, sexual violence is

(12:11):
rife in this book, as well as, um, sex itself
and drug taking. So just be aware. But, um, one
of those highly praised and out there books unsettling. Um,
and maybe if you haven't read it, Andrew, you might
enjoy that one. And thank you for your recommendation for
Blood Meridian. Now August the 26th, in case you missed it,

(12:32):
it was International Dog Day. It's on August the 26th
every year and provides an extra special occasion to go
above and beyond in celebrating the joy and companionship dogs
bring to our lives. It's been happening since 2004. Animal
advocate Colleen Page started this day and here at Vision Australia.

(12:53):
Of course, we have our Seeing Eye dogs, which are
much loved and accompany their owners around the building. It's
wonderful having dogs in the workplace. I thought I would
play a sample of Markus Zusak memoir, and the title
is Three Wild Dogs and the truth. There's a madman,
Dog Beside me and the Hounds of Memory ahead of us.

(13:16):
It's love and beasts and wild mistakes and regret, but
never to change things. What happens when the zoos open
their family home to three big, wild, pound hardened dogs?
Ruben a wolf at your door with a hacksaw. Archer. Blonde, beautiful,
deadly and the rancorously smiling. Frosty who walks like a

(13:39):
rolling thunderstorm. The answer can only be chaos. There are
street fights, park fights, public shamings, property trashing, bodily injuries,
stomach pumping, purist comedy, shocking tragedy and carnage that needs
to be seen to be believed. Not to mention the
odd police visit at some ungodly hour of the morning.

(13:59):
There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening
of will. But most important of all, an explosion of
love and joy and recognition of family. From one of
the world's great storytellers comes a tender, motley and exquisitely
written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder,
a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty,

(14:22):
but also the visceral truth of the natural world straight
to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.
Let's hear a sample of Three Wild Dogs and the
truth a memoir. This is by Markus Zusak, and it's
narrated by the author.

S5 (14:41):
We don't belong in the eastern suburbs. Not really. One
of the fancier parts of Sydney. Mika's from the west.
I'm from the distant south. The house we bought here
was old and beautiful, in need of a bit of work,
with an abnormally big backyard for a block so close
to the city centre, we joked that we would bring
local property values down with the worn out old car

(15:03):
I couldn't let go of. And the fact that I
threw up on the street when I caught a 24
hour bug. Not even a week after moving in. On
top of that, we had two bass quality cats and
soon a mangy dog. Talk of a dog started because
Kitty loved all animals, but she especially gravitated to dogs.

(15:24):
Mika's mom and dad had two. Both of the big
dog variety, and Kitty was taught to respect them. She
hugged them. She treasured them, but she never crossed the line.
She would never be climbing on their backs or mashing
up their faces, and the dogs loved her in return.
Earlier that year, about four months before we moved, we'd

(15:45):
visited our friends Dana and Daniel and their daughters in
San Francisco. I'd met Dana in 2006 on my first
ever book tour, which turned out to be in America
for that book I'd written in our previous home. It
was a novel I thought would fail. Called The Book Thief.
Unlike most book tours, which are set up by publishers

(16:07):
to be taken alone, it was a group of authors
all traveling together, and many of us became great friends.
There was Dana Rinehart, then the excellent husband and wife
writers Laura and Tom McNeil, and me. The McNeil's live
in San Diego. Back then, they had a sweetheart Doberman
named Edna, the most beautiful silk in the world. Even

(16:29):
in San Diego's constant warmth and comfort, she would stand
at the back door and shiver her ploy to be
indoors with the rest of us.

S2 (16:38):
And that was a sample of Three Wild Dogs and
the truth, a memoir by Markus Zusak. Markus is m
a r k s m a r k u s
z is z u z u s k. And that
book goes for 5.5 hours a night. A nice short one.

(17:01):
Markus Zusak is best known for The Book Thief and
the messenger, two novels that became international bestsellers. This book
is very recent. It was published in 2005, and we
have quite a few novels by Markus Zusak. We have
his 1999 first novel, The Underdog, which is part one

(17:21):
of the Wolf Brothers trilogy, which are available in um,
in audio and in Braille, as is The Book Thief
and as is The Messenger. There's also bridge of Clay,
again available in Braille and in audio. To another dog book,
now dog themed book. And this is a cozy mystery.
It's part one of a series. It's the dog sitter

(17:44):
Detective by Anthony Johnston. Retired actress Guinevere Gwynnie Tafel is
finding life hard after inheriting her late father's rundown house
and discovering she's broke, but Gwynnie is delighted to be
at Heyburn's stead for her best friend Tina's wedding to
a handsome Italian business magnate. However, before they get the

(18:06):
chance to declare till death do us part, the husband
to be is found dead in the library and Tina
is accused of his murder. Convinced of her friend's innocence,
Gwynnie must uncover the real killer from a pool of
larger than life suspects, while also suddenly finding herself looking
after Tina's expensive and demanding Saluki dogs. Let's hear a

(18:28):
sample of The Dog Sitter Detective by Anthony Johnston. It's
narrated by Nicolette McKenzie.

S6 (18:35):
The drizzle stopped as I emerged from Sloane Square tube,
turning off the King's Road into Smithfield Terrace. I approached
my father's house. My house now. I had to remember
that I tried to look at the place as a
stranger might see it, or better still, a prospective buyer.
From the outside, it looked respectable enough. Three storeys plus basement,

(19:00):
white fronted and black railed every bit the traditional London townhouse.
It even had a parking space out front. Yes, the
porch tiles would appreciate a little TLC. So would the
window frames, but a new lick of paint would see them, right? Well,
apart from the one that leaked in the first floor
reception and the one that required a screwdriver to open

(19:23):
at the back, those would need to be replaced, as
would the missing ironwork on the basement stair and the
guttering below the dormer window, and the dormer window itself,
which had started to stick as badly as the bathroom door. Still, though,
surely it wouldn't take much for a decent tradesman to

(19:44):
make it presentable again. I fished in my bag for
the door keys, ready to assess the interior with a
new perspective, but by the time I found them, to
my dismay, and somehow, without making a sound, The Dowager
Lady Ragley stood guard between me and the sanctuary of
my front door. Despite her age, the widow dyed her

(20:08):
hair to match her perpetually black wardrobe, and today it
was scraped up into a tight bun, signalling she meant business. Guinevere,
my dear, are you well? My continued condolences, of course.
Thank you, my lady. She insisted on being addressed properly,
even though she'd now been a dowager four times, as

(20:29):
long as her late husband had ever been a baron,
as well as can be expected.

S2 (20:34):
And that was the dog sitter detective. Part one of
the dog sitter detective mysteries by Antony Johnston. Antony is
a n o n y a n t o n
y and Johnston is j o n t o j
o h t o n. That book goes for Uh, seven.

(20:58):
7.5 hours. And there are a further two in the
series that are in the library. Now, what is a
Saluki dog breed? I've looked it up. It's an ancient
Sighthound breed from the Middle East. They're supposedly aloof, quiet, intelligent,
and reserved. Sighthounds hunt primarily by sight rather than strong scent,

(21:20):
and this was once used by nomadic tribes to run
down game animals. They're deep chested and long legged, and
similar dogs appear in medieval and ancient art. So looking
at a picture here, I'm looking at something that has
a head a little bit like a greyhound and a
long body, very long, thin legs. And it says here

(21:41):
on Wikipedia they're most closely related to the Afghan hound.
They've been nicknamed the Gazelle Hound. So that's the Saluki dog, Yuki. Yuki.
In May 2023, the dog sitter detective was published and
the author was born in 1972. And to finish off

(22:01):
with just a sample of a true crime book, it's Australian.
It's called In the Dead of Night, and it's by
Greg Haddrick. In March 2020, a couple disappeared, disappears from
the remote Wonnangatta Valley, leaving a burnt out campsite. Russell
Hill and Carol Clay are secret lovers, and it's first,
and at first it seems they might simply have started

(22:23):
a new life somewhere. But the police become increasingly convinced
they have been the victims of foul play, even though
their bodies have not been found. So begins a painstaking
police investigation, tracing the driver of every car in the
area at the time, checking their stories and alibis. Ultimately,
after more than a year's work, there seems to be

(22:43):
only one driver who cannot be eliminated Greg Lynn, a
Jetstar captain. Is it possible that this highly successful professional
pilot is a killer? Could he be responsible for a
number of missing a mysterious disappearances in the Wonnangatta Valley.
Where are the bodies and how can the police successfully
charge him? Given there are no witnesses, no bodies, and

(23:06):
no clues as to how they were murdered. This is
the gripping inside story of the pursuit and trial of
Greg Lynn. Let's hear a sample of In the Dead
of Night by Greg Haddrick. It's narrated by David Tredinnick.

S7 (23:20):
In March 2020, the head of the Victoria Police missing
persons squad was Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper. Stamper is a casual,
easy talking copper who has fronted his fair share of
press briefings without attracting a public profile of any note,
except with crime reporters and aficionados. But he has proved
remarkably effective. He has an engaging turn of phrase and

(23:44):
an amusingly dry sense of humour, which makes him very
easy to like with short, curly black hair. A solid
and imposing 1.88m frame and a laconic drawl. He has
a knack for winning and keeping friends. His parents are
from the north of England, but stamps is an Aussie
and a veteran major crime and homicide detective with Victoria Police.

(24:07):
Vic Poll he was one of a couple of dozen
key detectives in Taskforce Purana, whose work ended the Melbourne
gangland war of 2000 to 2004. He has pursued, arrested,
interviewed and convicted dozens of serious offenders and several of
those can be counted among Australia's most cunning, intelligent, criminal psychopaths.

(24:30):
He has also been presented with a vast range of
puzzling crime scenes, as well as many that were not
so puzzling but just enormously tragic. After the completion of
the investigation into the murder of 23 year old comedian
and actress Eurydice Dixon in an inner city Melbourne Park,
a particularly shocking case that Stamper also led, he moved

(24:52):
from homicide to the Missing Persons Squad, where theoretically confronting
cases with a high media profile were less likely. In
early March 2020, the appeal launched by James Todd Dixon's
19 year old killer against the severity of his sentence,
was finally dismissed. He would spend his life behind bars.

(25:15):
The final chapter in that sad, horrific story was closed,
and stamps enjoyed a fortnight's refreshing leave before returning to
work at the Missing Persons Squad.

S2 (25:25):
And that was a sample of In the Dead of
Night by Greg Haddrick Greg is G surname Patrick is
h a d I c k h a d r
I c k. That book goes for 9.5 hours. Thank

(25:51):
you for joining us on here this today I'm Francis Keeland.
Thank you to Andrew for your recommendation for Blood Meridian
and for pointing out that these, um, disquieting and unsettling
books that have a lot of darkness in them. There
is also often beauty in them that is expressed in
a very different way to lighter books. If anybody else

(26:13):
would like to recommend books or authors, even just a
little comment about a book is enough for me to go, oh,
that sounds great and have it on the show. With
a sample, you can always call 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or
you can email library at. That's all. Have a lovely

(26:39):
week and we'll be back next week with more here. This.