Colleen McCullough

It was Thorn Birds.

I don't know if you remember that book by Colleen McCullough, I think her last name was.

Mm-hmm.

And it was an amazing book.

That book, it does, it haunts us and I'm still trying to understand why and I find myself coming back to it as I write about things like Aussie Noir, as I write about the way in which we erase particular ways of thinking and talking and remembering things our place.

Well, the late, great Colleen McCullough should be on that list.

She should be somewhere on the top 100 books,

for sure.

For people who haven't seen it, how would you describe that story? It was such a big deal at the time.

Well, you know, it was Colleen McCullough's book, which was massive all over the world, and an American company picked up the rights to it and turned it into 10 hours.

And it was basically a love story between a young, uh, young girl, uh, on an, on an Australian homestead and her relationship with a Catholic bishop, and, a, an illicit love story, which of course was why it was such a bestseller.

And let me tell you, in Italy, they turn that on every Christmas and watch that.