Tight Lines #author Allee Richards

 I never meant to get so drunk. Each time it happened I swore it would be the last time and the next time I had a drink I believed that I could chug it down and it’d somehow end different …

Luke, Josh and Matty live for the summer: surfing, fishing and drinking. When Millie joins their crew, life feels even sweeter. But, like the wild coast they call home, where the tide can change from safe to catastrophic in an instant, one decision irrevocably changes the lives of all involved.

In their twenties, they try to recapture the freedom they took for granted when they were young. But they are not the same people and there is no going back.

Set against the nostalgic backdrop of small-town coastal life in the 2000s, Tight Lines is a moving, transformational novel that explores the sometimes devastating consequences of our choices and how, with hope and friendship, we can keep on living anyway.

To connect with Allee ...
https://www.alleerichards.com/
https://www.instagram.com/alleerichards/
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Tight-Lines/Allee-Richards/9781761636929 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good morning, Allie Richards. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Hi there, thanks so much for having me. Ah, my pleasure. Ali, I have your book and I have been lucky enough to have already read it. Congratulations. Tell us all about your newest book, Tight Lines.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yes, Tight Lines is my third novel. It is a story about a group of teenage boys growing up on a Victorian regional uh Victorian coastal town in the noughties, and it follows their relationships into their early adulthood.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah, and you know, I mean that's that's my growing up time. So I really enjoyed, you know, the nostalgia of this. Do you want to just tell us a bit about the characters and the themes and anything we need to know to get us curious about it?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, so it's a multi-perspective novel, um, and it follows a relationship between a very, I think, anxious, although I don't think he has that word, um, young boy called Luke. He's a bit monosyllabic, he's a bit shy, he does, he's not very good at expressing his emotions really or even understanding what they are. And he has two best friends that live on the same street as him that are identical twins, um, sort of one's the brain and one's the brawn. Um, and they grow up in this small, like coastal town, and every summer he gets flooded flooded with tourists, and they um strike up a friendship with a young girl called Millie who she can't at the caravan park every year. And it is kind of it is revealed quite early in Luke's narration at the start that he ends up in prison one day, and it kind of follows how that happens and the fallout of everything that happens between that group of friends, and it shifts between their perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

And when I was reading it, I was feeling like this book could be any coastal, well, it could be any town, but you know what I mean? This could be anywhere in the world. I know it's set uh in coastal Victoria, but yeah, like there's having grown up in the 90s, I feel like I can relate to this story in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, and I think a lot of Australians, there is something uniting, even though there are differences, we're all very state proud in Australia, I find. So we're not particularly patriotic, maybe, but everyone's really proud of their state that they come from. And while there are differences of growing up in like a smaller town or any suburb in, say, Queensland to Victoria, there's also a huge amount of similarities that tie people. And I think the naughs in particular have only recently started to feel like history in a way. So it was fun to kind of write about an era that is now quite vintage, which is quite scary to think that 2003 is vintage, but it drift 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. Okay, and Ali, do you want to tell us a bit about writing this book? You mentioned you've got a couple of previous books. You know, for those who aren't familiar with you, you're a highly respected and an awarded author. Uh, so tell us about writing this particular book and and and that journey.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So my other two books that I have published, they are books that some people lump them into this whole broad character category called Sad Girl novels. They're about millennial women, sort of in disaffected women generally, and they're set in inner city Melbourne. And so this book does in some ways feel like a swing away from that because it follows young boys and it's not set in the city, although we shift and we do move. And there is still, if you're a fan of my earlier work, there is still, I think it's not quite as different as some. Um, but I actually so it feels like new territory, and a lot of people in the publishing industry are calling it new territory for me. But I've actually started when I was younger, I always wrote about boys. I I work in a very male-dominated industry and in theater as a theatre technician. And I also went to an all-boys school that had just turned co-ed when I started going there, but it was in the transitions of going co-ed. So I had a very masculine uh experience in the education system. So there was a lot of inspiration for me in short stories that I used to write when I was younger that were actually more about tales of young men. Uh, the character of Ian in this book, he actually appeared in one of my first ever published short stories that was published by Killia Darlings. It's called Perry Ferrell. It's still available to read online if you're a wedding subscriber, which I highly recommend people are. Yeah. Um, so it was actually a return in some senses to the characters and the kinds of work that I started writing about a very long time ago in my early 20s.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. And Ali, um, are you gonna keep writing? And I love that your writing journey, what did you what did you refer to as that sad girl novel, sad girl genre? I I mean, I love that, and I know the audience will love that because you know, authors should don't have to be boxed into one genre, do they?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

No, and I mean I think as I said though, there are certain I think my interests in literature are always in character and language, and so I think I'm always trying to write, I think complicated characters who are quite unlikable in it, you can still empathize with greatly. And I'm always really interested in crafting sentences in a way that I find really stylistically pleasing, and that is what I'm interested in when I read. So for literary readers or any reader who liked my work, I think that stuff is still there. But in terms of the kinds of people or the kinds of life experiences, I mean, you just grow with your work as well. I mean, I I can't write about 20-year-olds riding bikes around the city anymore. I'm now a mother who not know where the kids go to drink. So I, you know, natural things what interests you.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah. Uh the author of the journey of an author, that's that's great to share. Ali, uh, if people are watching anywhere in the world, if people are curious about you, your previous work, uh, this book, I'm gonna put some links in the show notes here. But do you want to point us in the direction of where we go to check you out? I know you've got a website.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, I have a website um that you can, it sort of has most of my work linked on there and a link tree where you can find old stories and things like that. I'm on Instagram, so you can always find me on there. Yeah, um, and I'm doing I think a few of these things aren't announced quite yet, but there's a few little festivals like regional uh writers' festivals and things that I'll be appearing at. So if you keep an eye on my website or my Instagram page, you should be able to find out about that in the awesome.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, I'll put those links in. Yeah, you know, well done. I'm not surprised. You've got lots of events coming up. Loved the book. Uh I look forward to continuing to support you, but enjoy this one.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Well done. Thank you so much for reading it and sharing with it. I yeah, I really hope that you liked it and you can pass it into the hands of other people who might too.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Ali, the one thing about yellow shelf is I do read these books and I write a review if the author wants me to, and then I hand them on. I I love the fact that books should just continue to be read. So I promise you I'm going to pass this one on. I already know who I'm going to give it to. So Ali, thanks so much. All the best. Thank you so much. Cheers.