A wrong turn at the office of unmade lists by Jane Rawson: 9 Feb, 2017

It's 1997 in San Francisco. Simon and Sarah are on a quest to stand in every 25-foot square of the United States at least once. Decades later, in Australian, Caddy is camped by the Maribyrnong River. She’s sick of being broke and alone. Caddy’s future changes when her friend, Ray, finds some well-worn maps—including one of San Francisco. Their lives connect with those of Simon and Sarah in ways that are both unexpected and profound.

A wrong turn at the office of unmade lists was the winner of the Most Underrated Book of 2014.

Jane Rawson will join us for a Q&A on Thursday, 9 February between 8 and 9pm. Please leave any questions you have below. (And discuss the book at your leisure!)

Want to buy A wrong turn at the office of unmade lists? Receive 10% off when purchasing it from Readings at State Library Victoria. To receive the discount online, enter the promo code BOOKCLUB in the promo code box during online checkout. To receive the discount at our State Library bookshop, simply mention the Thursday night book club at the counter.

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Hi Jane! How do you resist wanting to give up on a novel draft?

Hi Katheryn, I do have at least one novel draft I've given up on. It's 50,000 words long and I'm pretty sure it can't be salvaged. There are some great scenes in it but it just doesn't make sense and I don't think it ever will. I'm hoping I can pull a short story or two out of it, maybe. But it may be that there's nothing can be saved. I gave up on 'From the Wreck' at least twice - it was fine, with some good scenes and characters, but just a bit boring and I couldn't be bothered writing it yet again to try to make it interesting. But it wouldn't leave me alone, I kept thinking about it. I even got a tattoo of it in the hope that that would be enough, that I wouldn't have to write the story again. But I was stuck with it. And eventually I found the right way to write it; or at least, the rightest way I could write it (I'm sure someone else could write it another equally good or better way). And I gave up on Formaldehyde too - after I wrote it in 2000 I tried to get it published for about seven years, but no one wanted it. Then I wrote 'A wrong turn...' instead. But once that got published I thought I'd have another go at rewriting Formaldehyde. A good friend and very good editor suggested it might make a novella, and that I should enter it in Viva la Novella, and she was right.