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ONE ANOTHER

Gail Jones

$ 34.99 $ 29.99

Gail Jones ’ novel One Another has been chosen as the very first Fiction Book of the Month . One Another is a literary and evocative book that grapples with themes such as loss , literature , identity , and grief . It is also a captivating and compelling story that draws the reader in . Jones is a favourite among Collins readers and stores , and One Another is an expertly drawn novel that we want to share with as many readers as possible .

Congratulations on being the first Collins Fiction Book of the Month . Can you tell us a bit about your new book ?

Thank you ! This is a novel with two narrative threads . One is a slightly whacky retelling of the life of Joseph Conrad ; the other is a story set in 1992 and concerns a young woman from Tasmania writing a doctorate at Cambridge University . She ’ s dealing with a violent lover , trying to sort out her future , and learning to become independent in the world .

Most readers have heard of Joseph Conrad and many have read or studied his short novel Heart of Darkness . Born in what is now Ukraine , the only son of Polish patriots , he became a sailor at sixteen and worked on merchant navy ships for the next twenty years , travelling all over the globe ( including three visits to Australia ). At thirty-six he left the sailing life and then spent the next thirty years , until his death , writing stories and novels . He only learnt English at 21 , so his success was remarkable : he was one of the great English writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries .

For a reader who may be new to your work , what can they expect from your writing ?

This is a novel that shifts between two stories , two main time periods , and many locations . So it ’ s a novel that I hope offers a kind of ‘ what ’ s next ?’ pleasure , with the focus shifting from adventure , to relationships , to reading , to memory . Inner and outer life are equally important to me and most of my work plays on a fluctuation between the two . I ’ m interested in the peculiar texture of experience , and how these qualities and multiple spaces exist in every life , sometimes close together , or contrasting , or interpenetrating .

I try to write precisely and have been very influenced by cinema , so I ’ m often told by readers that my work is ‘ cinematic ’.

Your protagonist , Helen , is studying Joseph Conrad . What is it about his writing and history that you were drawn to ?

His life was a strange one – an orphan , raised by his widowed uncle , lots of adventures and accidents at sea ( shipwrecks , smuggling , deaths on board ), lots of illness and struggle , not least when he worked in the brutal slave territory of the Belgian Congo – which almost killed him . He was a lonely , obsessive , and full-hearted man . He was also hugely popular and influential as a writer . Many Anglophone writers in the early twentieth century mention his work with a kind of veneration .

Helen is drawn into a complex and dramatic web of relationships , emotions and identity . Do you identify with her and the struggles she faces ?

Helen is not the author in disguise . But I did struggle as a postgraduate student and I ’ m interested in how students negotiate the beginnings of adult life – finding their own values , figuring out who they are , trying to make sense . Identity is a fascinating topic for me and I do think we ’ re complex , hybrid and contradictory creatures , the sum of many selves , as it were , that don ’ t always fit easily together .

The concept of loss , both personal and intellectual , is a central theme in the novel . How challenging is it to explore loss in your work ?

For me , loss is a central theme . I think our losses , as well as all our accomplishments and experiences , crucially contribute to who we are . We have all lost childhoods , some of us have lost homelands and languages , we have all mourned , or seen people we love suffer and die . I believe I ’ m a hopeful not a melancholy writer , but I do take seriously this idea that loss shapes us in essential ways , and that one of the purposes of reading and writing is to contemplate , by proxy if you like , how we are made by not just what is visible , but what is gone , and invisible .

What do you hope readers will get out of this book ?

In some ways this is a book about reading – how it gives us pleasure and expands our sympathies , imagination and sense of self . This sounds a little corny , perhaps , but I do believe that the imaginative excursions of reading are also a kind of experience , and that we learn and change with the books that matter to us .

You are one of Australian ’ s most celebrated writers , author of numerous novels , short-story collections and other works , and an academic . How do you decide what to write about next ?

Tricky question ! I ’ m a fairly intuitive writer and often start without knowing what I will write . One Another arose simply from an image : seeing the wreck of Conrad ’ s boat in the Derwent River in Hobart . I ’ d never intended to write a book on Joseph Conrad . The topic just declared itself through the image .

Finally , do you have any recommendations of books you have loved recently ?

I ’ ve read a lot of wonderful books over the summer – some Australian novels ( Amanda Lohrey ’ s The Conversion , Gary Disher ’ s Day ’ s End , Charlotte Wood ’ s Stone Yard Devotional and re-visiting David Malouf ’ s Harland ’ s Half Acre ), but also lots of poetry and non-fiction . I feel I never keep up with anything , so any completed book is a delight …

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