You Can't Write About The Past And

Sydney In The 1960s Wasn't The Exuberant Multicultural Metropolis It Is Today. Out In The City's Western Reaches, Days Passed In A Sun-struck Stupor. In The Evenings, Families Gathered On Their Verandas Waiting For The 'southerly Buster' - The Thunderstorm That Would Break The Heat And Leave The Air Cool Enough To Allow Sleep.

My Sentences Tend To Be Very Short And Rather Spare. I'm More Your Paragraph Kind Of Gal.

My Mother's Family Were Full-on Irish Catholics - Faith In An Elaborate Old Fashioned, Highly Conservative And Madly Baroque Style. I Sort Of Fell Out Of The Tribe Over Women's Rights And Social Justice Issues When I Was Just 13 Years Old.

And When I'd Be Reporting In Israel, Palestinians Would Say, The Jews They're Not Like Us, And The Jews Would Say The Same Things About The Palestinians, They Don't Want What We Want. And I Never Bought It As A Reporter And I Don't Buy It As A Novelist. I Think, You Know, The Sound Of Somebody Crying For Their Lost Child Sounds The Same.

Even The Classics That We Read To Our Young Children Are Full Of Wolves' Fangs And Burning Ovens And Bloody Feet And Ice Shards Piercing Hearts. Even The New Testament Climaxes With An Act Of Unspeakable Torture. Might As Well Just Read To Our Kids From The Amnesty Annual Report And Be Done With It.