In conversation with Shaun Prescott

Tank Magazine Podcast

In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Jan-Peter Westad speaks with the writer Shaun Prescott about his debut novel The Town. Published by Faber, the novel follows an unnamed narrator in his effort to research the small towns in the New South Wales region of Australia. The unnamed town he settles in is defined by fast food outlets and petrol stations; the bus driver has no passengers and the radio station no listeners. Its inhabitants spend most of their free time drinking and brawling. And when the town starts to physically disappear, none of them seem to notice. Prescott drops us into this ominously banal world with a deadpan humour and nerve that has seen the book compared with Calvino and Kafka. Here he talks about what The Town might reveal of wider Australian society and some of the influences behind the novel. ?