Catherine Raynes: Frosty and Reacher: The Stories Behind The Stories

Frosty by Mark Winterbottom  

The incredible true story of the boy from Doonside who became a Bathurst king.  

Mark Winterbottom's story is unlike any other in motorsport. It's not about privilege or million-dollar sponsors - it's the tale of a working-class kid with a dream so big it defied the odds.  

Frosty's story is a motorsport fairy tale that is also proof that with heart, hustle and an unyielding will to succeed, you can achieve greatness. Mark went on to win 10 Australian national kart titles and 25 state championships before transitioning into Formula Ford in 2001. His meteoric rise continued in 2003 when he clinched the Konica V8 Supercar Series Championship and was honoured with the Mike Kable Young Gun Award. Mark would also become one of Ford's most famous drivers when he broke through to beat Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup by winning the 2015 Supercars Championship in his flying Falcon.  

Frosty is more than a story of fast cars, chequered flags and brushes with some of motorsport's greats, including Lewis Hamilton and Peter Brock. It's about resilience, family and overcoming life's biggest challenges.  

In this inspiring memoir, Mark shares the raw truth of his hardest battles: the irreparable fallout with his father, supporting his mother through cancer, and pushing forward when most would have given up. From the streets of western Sydney to the summit of Mount Panorama, Mark Winterbottom's story is a powerful reminder that impossible dreams can be chased - and won. 

  

Reacher: The Stories Behind The Stories by Lee Child  

From global bestseller and creator of Jack Reacher, comes Lee Child’s first-ever autobiographical collection. 

From urgently scribbling out his debut Killing Floor in pencil (the stub of which he still owns), to taking a step back with Blue Moon, and everything in between, here are 24 fascinating personal reflections on his life and work, crafted across decades. 

Whether it is through Lee’s moving account of meeting a fan years after her mother brought her to a book signing, to facing his first computer and the coming of the internet, to writing about New York just before – and just after – 9/11, to later seeing his novels adapted for the big screen . . . each riveting piece deftly evokes where he was, psychologically and physically, when he wrote each novel. 

Lee has clearly felt unwavering gratitude for his readers since 1997. And these honest, witty and wise reflections were originally designed for fans of Reacher who may be interested in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ – or, in Lee’s words: ‘why the books turned out the way they did’. 

But this collection is also so much more. It is the story of a man who once put pencil to paper in an attempt to turn his luck around . . . and who made every word count. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to this Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
For all the things that Lee Child has written over
his incredible career, all of the amazing Reacher adventures, he
has never yet published an autobiographical collection, that is, until now.
Reacher The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child is
the first of Katherine Rain's our book reviewers Picks for
this weekend. Hey Catherine, Morning, Jack, So tell us about it.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
So Lee Child was made redundant from a BBC in
the early nineties, and so the book actually opens on Monday,
September the fifth, and nineteen ninety four, and he's at
home at the dining room table writing the first chapter
of his book, and he gives it to his wife
and actually asks the very innocuous question should I continue?
And she said, yes, I like it. So these are

(00:58):
all of the tales of the Reacher novels. And it
describes the cut up, behind the scenes, and why the
books turned out the way that they did. And he's
got and he notes about it and what he was
inspired by and context not only of what was going
on his life, but the world outside the books as well.
And so it starts from nineteen ninety nine's Killing Four
all the way to twenty nineteen's Blue Moon, and it's

(01:20):
that book Killing Floor that he's you know, was his
debut novel and it went on to be a pretty
big hit, and it was originally entitled actually bad Luck
in Trouble, which went on to be his eleventh novel,
And he talks about working with Tom Cruise and that
whole Hollywood experience and Persuader was his. He loved Alistair MacLean,

(01:40):
so it was really, you know, kind of about writing
like him and that sort of thing. And you know,
it reflects on actually how sixty one hours is his
favorite of the Reacher novels, and you know, he credits
a lot of success with the professionals around him, his agent,
his publishing teams, and above all his family. And then
actually the book ends with Lee Child with a short

(02:01):
story called a Better Place, which is a Jack Reacher story,
So for all fans, you get a little taste of
Jack creature again with Lee Child.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
On this book. Oh super Okay, that's the stories behind
the stories by Lee Child because his brother's been writing
the last few Lee Child adventures.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yes, I think the last five year is it?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Five, they write it.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
They wrote a couple together and then I think it's
the last. Yeah, yeah, where Andrew's kind of written them
all on his own. So yeah, and it has put
a bit of a different spin on it. But I
still like I still like the tail. I still like
Jack Reacher. And yeah, he has a bit of a
different spin, but it's good.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
He has an amazing thing too, where he because you know,
he came on the show and we talked to him
about it. He was saying, you know, when he writes,
he does that thing where he just he doesn't like
map out a story arc or anything like that. Right,
he doesn't. It's not it doesn't look like a mass
murderer's leer. We have all of the bits of string
and kind of fragments of bits of paper pinned to

(02:54):
the walls, and everything's connected. Nothing like that. When he
writes a book, he just writes a page and then
he just writes the next page, and he thinks, oh yeah,
that was good, and then he just writes the next page,
barely goes back and deletes anything. It's just amazing how
his brain works when it comes to storytelling so very much.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
And he crafts a story that makes a lot of sense.
And yeah, and then yeah, it is incredible because most
writers don't write like that, you know, with how you
described it. So yeah, it's an incredible way that he
does it. So I think it's his TV background that
helps him.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, for sure, absolutely, See TV is good for something.
The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child as your
first book. Next up, tell us about Frosty by Mark Winterbottom.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
So this story Mark Winterbottom starts in a very poor
suburb of Sydney and dune Side and then ends up
at the racing of kind of Mount Paranama. And you know,
Mark Winterbottom didn't come from money, and actually where he
gets his start is he actually wins raffle for a
pee wee fifty motorcycle and that kind of got him

(03:56):
hooked on on motor racing. And then he has this
crash and his mother decided that his motorcycling career was over,
but actually he could go kart racing. And the book
actually talks a lot about his relationship with his mother, June,
and the bond that they had and you know that's
created between them, and particularly when his parents' marriage starts
to dissolve and June was actually diagnosed with breast cancer

(04:18):
when Mark was only four, and he ends up as
her main support, accompanying to chemotherapy sessions until she sadly
passes away in twenty eleven. But her struggle with cancer
shapes his childhood and his character and his connection with
his mum's really strong that actually it's almost the opposite
what it is, the opposite with his father, who is
incredibly strange from his father, who was a speedway racer

(04:40):
guy called Jim, and he's never really spoken about it publicly,
and he speaks about it, I think quite candidly in
this book, you know, and the fact that they never
reconcile before his father's death in twenty twenty from leukemia.
So yeah, it's a kind of interesting person that Mark
is is shaped. But then of course there's the motor
racing and he won ten Australian cart Championships, twenty five

(05:02):
state championships and there because he moves to Formula Ford
Anyone's Bathur in thirteen alongside Kywe Stephen Richards and he
won the twenty fifteen Supercars Championship. But actually he also
talks about the politics of the supercars and what went
on behind the scenes, and he's pretty candid about his
racing life. He certainly doesn't shy away from talking about people.

(05:22):
He talks about the people that really helped him, but
he also talks about his rivals, particularly Mark Larkham, you know,
with his exit from the TV Stars team in two
thousand and five, his rivalry with Jamie Wincup. He really
sort of saves a lot of his chat about Craig Lownds,
who really gets some sharp critique, and their battles in

(05:45):
twenty fourteen and fifteen, and then of course this is
very recent exit from Team eighteen. And the book has
lots here whether you're a Mark Winterbottom fan or not,
it's got lots about motor racing and full performance and
some really good stories. And yeah, I think I think
those motor racing fans will find some good things in
this book.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
And I can tell that you are one of them, Catherine,
I am actually yeah, I know. No, it's very good.
You're full of surprises. It's great. So that is The
Stories Behind Sorry. That is Frosty by Marke Winterbottom. Your
first book is of course The Stories Behind the Stories
by Lee Child. Both of those will be on the
news Talk ZEDB website.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
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