Briefly tell us about your book.
A young woman stands alone on the side of a desolate highway in remote Australia. Despite the oppressive heat, it’s getting dark. Jo is waiting to be picked up by a farmer. A British national, she wants to extend her visa to stay in Sydney, and by law is expected to do three months of farm work. As she waits she tries not to think about the many young backpackers who have gone missing in the area.
Out of Breath follows Jo as she works on a remote mango farm and meets locals who are unlike anyone she’s known before. Three months later, Jo herself has gone missing.
What was the research process like for the book?
This book took me to so many places, mentally and literally, that I’d never been to before. It was a huge adventure! I went to the Kimberley region twice to research the novel and went to such amazing places. I spoke to a mango farmer and a crocodile wrangler and went along on a pearling harvest.
I interviewed countless international agricultural workers. Some of them had intense stories of workplace abuse, terrible living conditions and assault. One man I spoke to even found tiny cameras in the bedroom and bathroom of his very regional accommodation, and realised the farmer was recording him. I felt a big responsibility to tell the stories of these workers well. I hope I’ve done it justice!
Does the creative process get easier for you with each book?
No, not at all! I’ve found that if it’s too easy it probably isn’t working. I love to challenge myself with each creative idea. If it’s not a challenge then I don’t feel that excitement to come back to it.
Out of Breath, especially, was a huge challenge. It’s not a conventional thriller, and it isn’t like anything I’d read before. The novel has a few unexpected turning points that spin the whole story around. I’m a huge thriller fan, but found myself guessing the beats of the plot so easily with a lot of books I was reading. So with Out of Breath, I threw a lot of my usual plotting structures out the window and went out into the unknown.
How did you think of the title of the book?
This book has had so many titles! Originally it was called Lustre. I like the way the word sounds, and it also works with the themes of the book around pearls and the way people can reflect others light. However, the fantastic novel by Raven Leilani had this title and became a bestseller, so I knew I had to think of something else.
My literary agent liked the title Free Dive, so we went on submission with that one. Apart from the fact that the characters in the book free dive, I also loved how it made me think of submergence and going too deep. It gave me that claustrophobic feeling of being under heavy water, which is part of the book I really like. My publishers felt it wasn’t quite right, they thought it felt a bit too much like an action book. Titles are tricky because they need to reflect the genre as well as the story of the book.
We spoke about a few options after that, namely The Harvest and The Haven. They both could have been great, but something niggled at me that neither was quite right. I think perhaps they felt a bit too general. This book is different to anything I’ve written or read, and I wanted the title to represent that uniqueness. I wanted something that showed the mental state of my character, as well as the feeling of breathlessness and intensity of the plot.
It was actually my sister that came up with Out of Breath. She sent me a text on the last day it was possible to change it, just in time!
What’s your daily writing routine like and what are you working on at the moment?
My absolute favourite time to write is first thing in the morning. I find that the closer my mind is to sleep, the easier it is to tap into that subconscious place that stories live. I try and write at least five hundred words in the morning. After that, it has to fit around my baby daughter and my job at RMIT University. Since becoming a parent I’ve found that when I do have time to write, I jump right in. There is no time to procrastinate anymore!
I’m currently working on a new book (currently) titled The Ones We Love. It’s about the way we often hurt the people we most care about as well as how far we’ll go to protect them.
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