It was one of those interviews of unfortunate timing. I’d been scheduled to talk to author Jane Harper and her latest book The Lost Man hadn’t yet arrived. There’s only so much you can google about a new book but thankfully Harper’s incredible story has been well told.
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Her first book The Dry is something of a publishing phenomenon. She wrote it as part of an online 12-week writing course just to see if she could and it went on to win rave reviews and several prizes, including book of the year in the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards.
But I hadn’t read it either. Nor Force of Nature, her second book. So good journalist that I am, and Harper, herself a former journalist, totally understood, I binge read the first two in a weekend so at least I could half fake the interview.
The Lost Man did arrive and I ploughed into that five days later. I started it at noon and at 2am that night I closed it and totally understood what all the fuss was about.
It was even better than The Dry.
Harper had said I could call her back if I had any more questions and so I did when I got into work, my head still reeling with images of the Queensland outback, of families with secrets, with questions about domestic violence and mental health.
Harper’s about to board a plane to Sydney, embarking on the publicity tour for The Lost Man, which will bring her to Canberra for events on November 7, but she’s happy to talk again.
“When I write books I’m just trying to tell the story the best way I can,” she says.
While The Lost Man is another good thriller, it is also a harrowing story of isolation, domestic violence and rape, of families torn apart, but that’s not what Harper’s main focus is.
“I’m not out to make any conscious statement about an issue,” she says.
“It’s about tapping into those issues we can relate to, by making the characters as authentic and believable as I can. If there’s something in there we can recognise then that is what makes us connect to the story.”
She said that’s what made the first two books so successful. Small town settings, characters we recognised, perhaps even in ourselves.
“People make that connection with it, they think the characters and the place have that ring of authenticity to them.”
While her novels are terribly place driven, the spark of the story drives the location to some extent. For The Lost Man, she wanted to explore the idea of isolation.
“I had this real fascination with people who live in these really isolated, far-flung communities, for want of a better word, who live these really isolated lives in the outback.
“What are their day-to-day lives like and how does that impact their relationships and their work and looking into that I started building up the idea from the book.”
Harper spent some time in Birdsville, in far west Queensland, while researching the book, talking to local police officers, medical staff, indigenous elders and cattle farmers.
“It was a once in a lifetime road trip and I’ll never forget it,” she writes in the acknowledgements of the book.
“Everyone loves a vivid backdrop,” she says, “but I’m hoping you don’t have to be Australian to recognise these stories.”
It appears not. Not only have her books been published around the world, but soon the world will come to Australia. Filming for the movie of The Dry is set to take place in rural Victoria this summer.
It’s part of the Harper story that The Dry got snapped up early by Reese Witherspoon’s production company, with Australian producer Bruna Papandrea, the team that turned books Gone Girl and Wild into Oscar nominated films, and Australian author Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies into an Emmy nominated television series.
While Big Little Lies was relocated from Sydney’s northern beaches to the California coast, Harper is extremely pleased The Dry will be shot in Australia.
“My main hope is that they retain the essence of the book and capture the characters and the setting,” she says.
“I've seen the scripts and I've met director Robert Connelly, who has also written the script, to go over a few things here and there. They keep me well informed about the process.”
The Lost Man tells the story of three brothers and their family and Harper laughs when I suggest she gets Witherspoon to give the Hemsworth brothers a call to see what they’re up to.
Read the book and tell me it wouldn't work. And whatever Harper’s secret is, it works too.
The Lost Man, by Jane Harper. Macmillan Australia. $32.99.
ANU/Canberra Times meet the author event, in conversation with Alex Sloan. November 7, 6pm. Copland Lecture Theatre, ANU. For bookings head to anu.edu.au/events
Long Table Lunch at Muse Canberra. November 7, noon. Tickets $75 includes two-course lunch, glass of wine or soft drink, and a copy of the book. Bookings at musecanberra.com.au
