a farm in Australia, then I think he would be a very different person, maybe be a little bit artistic, although he would punch me in the eye for saying that. [Laughter] structo: Is it the same with the new book? wyld: No, not really. I guess because Jake is female that there is more connection with me in it. I mean I didn’t [major plot point deleted], but there are parts of my experience in there, in her younger years and also the strange depressions. Although it’s far less exciting in my life, I drew on that to get her personality, I suppose. And the silence, and the enjoying not talking to people for months. It’s one of the reasons I work here, otherwise I’d go mad. structo: Here is my attempt at deconstruction: Jake has become defeminised, in the sense that everyone describes her as very masculine—she’s got big hands and broad shoulders—and I thought, as I was reading it, that it was because of all the things that had happened to her she’d had to ‘manup’ to. And then afterwards when I was thinking about it, I thought well that is a very male opinion, it could have been she was defeminised by [some bad things that had happened]. So I was wondering, which it was? Or am I totally wrong? wyld: The first book is in a male voice. I didn’t think I was doing anything particularly strange by writing in a male voice, it was the voice that came out. It seems to be something that people pick up on, saying that’s really strange, a woman writing as a man, that’s really weird, and for me it’s totally natural and for me it’s also totally natural that a young woman would be unfeminine because she’s just a person; she has grown up with three brothers, she has grown up on a farm, and yes, she has a burgeoning sexuality, but she doesn’t quite know what to do with it, because she’s not sexually mature like her peers, the bullying ones, the people who mature sexually earlier than she does. I think that’s a very strange place to be in, it’s like a lanky or broad girl, it’s that feeling of I want to show off to this guy, but I’m not quite sure how or why, so I might just do a terrible cartwheel or slap him in the face or something. And I certainly recognise that as a problem. [Laughter] She’s always not been the ideal of feminine grace and I think that there is something really interesting about people who are the ideal of feminine grace, because there must be so much weird shit going on inside. But I suppose she is just much more oblivious to how to do that stuff. Being oblivious to sexual maturity is
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