Tablo | State Library Victoria

Fever of animals by Miles Allinson: 16 Feb, 2017

Miles has come to Europe on the trail of the Romanian surrealist who disappeared into a forest in 1967. In trying to unravel the mystery of Bafdescu’s secret life, Miles must also reckon with his own.

As he waits for someone who may never appear, Miles is chased by thoughts of his ex-girlfriend and the trip they took that ended their relationship. Fever of animals is, at its heart, a meditation on art and grief.

Miles Allinson 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 Fever of animals? 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.

What's the hardest part about writing for you? And how do you overcome it?

Hi James,
at the moment I'm doing a lot of research - driving out to meet people and interviewing them. I find myself procrastinating and putting it off for some reason until I completely despise myself. Only When I despise myself sufficiently can I actually pick up the phone and call to arrange another interview. For some reason that's the hardest thing at the moment. But that's probably not a very helpful answer because it's so specific to this project.

More generally, I find dialogue hard - and finding the points to break dialogue up to give a scene a sense of time and space and rhythms is particularly arduous work for me. That's the other thing I'm doing at the moment. Figuring out how to turn real conversation into compelling dialogue. That's hard.

Yep I'm a master at procrastination and then hating myself for it. I spend so much time researching when I know I have everything I need but then almost afraid to put pen to paper. So back to the archives I go.

I think that seems part of the job. Which is maybe a shame - but also - maybe we should accept it too - acknowledge that an important part of saying anything meaningful is living with the fear that it won't be meaningful enough. Kafka said a good thing about writing in the darkness - which just came to mind and is maybe slightly applicable - he said darkness isn't dark enough. Did nick cave quote that too somewhere?

Most likely, the true prince of darkness himself. I'll endeavour to break through the fear, slowly