I Love the Whole World! #author Victoria Hannan

When Leslie McDonald wins a trip to Las Vegas, an absurd holiday becomes a pilgrimage; one that leads her back to joy, back to herself, and to the astonishing realisation that her life still belongs to her.

Leslie had felt for some time that life was a series of things that just happened to her. When her physiotherapist husband dumps her for a woman with superior posture, she finds herself lost without a map.

A ticket out of her misery comes in the form of an all-expenses paid trip to the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Wonder, Leslie discovers, can be found in the most unexpected of places. Soon she falls in love with the beauty of the desert, its art and its people – and finds her way back to herself.

I Love the Whole World! is a celebration of life and self. Hilarious, joyous and beautifully observed, it is a novel about friendship, ageing and the extra/ordinary act of deciding to begin again.

Author Victoria Hannan is also a photographer. Her previous novels are Kokomo and Marshmallow.

To connect with Victoria ....
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/i-love-the-whole-world-9781761359934
https://www.victoriahannan.com/about
https://www.instagram.com/victorialhannan 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good afternoon, Victoria Hannah. Welcome to Yellow Shell for the first time. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure, Victoria. Congratulations. Your latest book is out now. I love the whole world. Tell us all about it, Victoria.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

It's actually out on the 11th of August.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So pre-orders. We can do pre-orders.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Pre-orders, please, everybody. Pre-orders. Wonderful. Yeah. I Love the Whole World is my third novel, which feels very crazy to say. It's the story of a woman named Leslie McDonald. She's newly divorced. She's about 43 years old and she's from Melbourne. And then one day post-divorce, she's thinking about all the different ways she could maybe change her life, and she decides to start entering competitions. And then she enters one to win a trip to Las Vegas and she wins. And she surprises anybody. But really, it's a story about what comes next for her. So we don't go into all the gritty details of the divorce. It's really just about who Leslie can become in this new world where she has all this freedom. And it's also a book about friendship and it's about art. And there's magicians in it and tigers. And there's also a lot of sweating because she's perimetapausal.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah. So many people can relate to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yes, me, me included. I actually I went to Vegas to research this book, and I was so sweaty the whole time. So Leslie's sweat is my sweat. Um, but yeah, I think one of the nice things about Leslie and writing this character was it was really about her kind of learning who she was um in the world and just learning to love the world again. And that was quite a joyful thing to write.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

And Victoria, I think, you know, uh it's a concept that you know a lot of men or women face. So we'll you know, but people in middle age, I guess if that's the right word, you know, sometimes need to not reinvent themselves, but they need to refine themselves and just go on this discovery journey of who we are post either having children or post-relationship breakdown or post-whatever. Um, yeah, it's it's a fascinating uh topic to dive into.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, and I don't think it even has to be post-anything. I think you can just get to a certain age and be like, what else is there for me? It's like I don't think we have to stop growing as people just because we've hit our 40s or 50s or 60s, even.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Um, so I really like the idea of people going, hang on a second, life isn't over for me at any age. I can go to Vegas if I want to. I can pat a tiger. Well, maybe not pat a tiger, but it's a little bit harder harder to achieve. But I can go to Vegas or I can even just go on a road trip for a couple of days near where I live, but just go out and see some more of the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And Victoria, do you want to tell us? Like you've written a couple of other books. Um, one of them I've read. Um, so I know this one's a shift. I've read Marshmallow. I guess okay. I haven't read the other one, but now that I'm talking to you, I'm gonna make sure I do read Kokomo. So you've I mean it's a bit of a shift from your other books. Do you want to make I'd love you for anyone who's not familiar with your work, tell us a bit about you as an author, mention your other books, like tell us even your writing style.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah, so I have written two novels. The first one, Kokomo, came out in deep in COVID lockdown in 2020. Um, and that was the story, and I've got to try and remember what it's actually about because it's been a while. Um, Kokomo's a story of a mother and daughter. So the mother's been um kind of a recluse and locked in the house for quite a long time, and then the daughter gets a message to say that her mother has left the house, and so she has to, she's living in London and she returns to Australia to try and find out why her mum's left the house. And it's just about kind of grief and discovering family secrets, and I guess also mothers and daughters sort of learning who each other are as adults. Um, and then Marshmallow, which came out in 2022, um, is a story of five friends who um a year earlier experienced the or witnessed the death of a child, um, and it's really about uh how they cope with grief and how that grief has um affected each of their lives differently and sort of fractured them in different ways. So, I mean the first one has some jokes in it, but they're both sort of uh much sadder books than this one. And I think my experience of both writing Marshmallow, which I did I think as a way to sort of work through some grief quite soon after my mum died. Um writing that was obviously very sad, and then but I kind of used it as a way to to work through some ideas, and so I started to feel a little bit less better about it all. And then I published the book and spent quite a long time going out and talking to people about grief and sadness, and um, it really affected me much more than I thought it would, and it was really quite challenging to feel like I was starting to feel a bit better, but then be dragged back into that world a little bit. And so I said to myself, if I'm gonna write another book, I need the experience of writing it and then the experience of talking about it afterwards to be fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

At least more fun than writing about grief. And so that's sort of how part of how this book came to be.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

And tell us about you as a writer. I'd like to know, like some writers lock themselves down and have timelines or go away on a retreat. Like, tell us a bit about that journey as a writer.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, so um I had actually written two very, very, very bad novels before Kokomo. Um, and one of them I think I've deleted all uh record of it so that no one can ever find it. And then might be the other one, might be lurking around in a Google Drive somewhere. Um, but I got the idea for Kokomo, and it was the very first time that I thought, oh, this idea feels much more like me, and this idea feels like it could actually be a real thing. And at the time I was working in a horrible advertising job. Um, and so I ended up applying for a bunch of writing residencies, and I said to myself, if I get into one, I will quit my job and I will go and write the first draft of this novel. I basically just needed an excuse to quit my job, and that seemed like a pretty good one to me. Um, and then I ended up getting into a residency on the island of Illabella, which is off the coast of Brazil, of all places. And so I went and I in a month I sat down and I wrote the first draft of Kokomo. And then I wrote another draft and another draft and another draft, and then I entered it into the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, which I somehow won. Which was an amazing stroke of luck, life-changing luck. Um, and I feel very blessed because after that I got a two-book deal with Hachette. Um, and yeah, and just set about publishing books.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So, Victoria, is there more books, do you think, in the I mean, you know, is that the plan? Let's see how this one goes. No, I I think so. Well, people need to go out and buy it, don't they? They do. They do.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

That's what we need. We need to buy it. So if they want another one, they have to buy this one.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Okay. There's the challenge. It's available now for pre-order. Victoria, if um, if anyone's watching anywhere in the world and wants to learn more about you, uh, you've got a website, Instagram, we'll put some links into pre-orders, but you also do photography because I was looking at your work.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I do, yeah. And actually, one of the fun things about this book is because I went to Vegas to research it. I have lots of photos of some of the beautiful desert scenes in the Grand Canyon that I saw. And so at each of my launch events in both Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, we're gonna be giving away a print of mine from somewhere that's mentioned in the book. So all you have to do is come to the event and buy a book, and you'll go in the running to win a limited edition framed print.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Awesome. Well, Victoria, I'm gonna put some links in the show notes to make it easy. Now, our Northern Hemisphere Friends, I know this book potentially is gonna be released at some point. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

So this is any word on that? So it's coming out um with Penguin in Australia on the 11th of August, and then it will be coming out in North America through Scribner on the 27th of April next year.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Okay, well, this is this is a good enough reason to get curious. Uh thank you so much for joining us, Victoria. Thank you for watching. I really enjoyed the book. I want people to go and read it. Um, I would love to have you back in the future to support any future work, but it has been a delight to meet you and and hear all about the book. Thank you so much. Cheers.