I emailed the author some questions. He replies:
I had a feeling word would get to you eventually. I thanked you
in the book (and thank you now) for all the material on your encyclopaedic
website. It doesn't matter to me how much is true and how much is
myth - what I find interesting is the whole shadow industry around
adult that informs and reflects what's going on in other industries
and other places. I haven't looked at it all that much lately, but
when I was putting together the book your work was both entertaining
and hugely helpful.
Now, to your questions. I hope some of this is useful:
>First, and most important, what
has gone wrong with Australia's test team?
I think it's more what's gone right with the English team. Our
team has grown fat and lazy by pummeling weak opposition - they've
been dropping a lot of catches for two years but getting away with
it - so it was only a matter of time before a good opponent would
make them pay. This England team - not the batsmen so much as the
bowlers - is extremely talented and has been aided by some good
(Australian!) coaches (Rod Marsh, Troy Cooley). It's all downhill
for Australia from here. Warne and McGrath are the heart and soul
of the team, and they're 36 and 35. Only two players are under 30.
England, who only have one player over 30, might hold the Ashes
for a while now.
>What provoked you to write this book?
Initially I wanted to write a kind of huge documentary novel about
porn, including a Reuben Sturman character at the top, working its
way down through producers, distributors, even the guy who drives
the truck, the camera operator, the performers/models, right down
to the owner of the sex shop and at the very end the consumer. I
did a first draft of the novel in that shape about five years ago.
It didn't really work - turned out that the character I was most
interested in was the man at the end, the last link of the chain.
He never really gets written about seriously, and he's the ultimate
reason for the whole thing existing, and there are millions of him
out there. That kind of magic in the transmission of how a porn
film, say, is made into what enters the head and heart of the man
using it - and a 67-year-old doctor discovering hardcore porn for
the first time in his life in some office 10,000 miles away - is
what interested me. So he meets the porn star in the end, with interesting
results.
>What did you love and hate about writing this book?
To be honest, when I look at this book I wonder Who the hell wrote
this? Was it me? Am I that sick bastard? I love writing and I suppose
I loved pushing myself beyond my imaginative limits. I also love
rewriting and the whole craftsmanship of editing and improving it
too. What I hated was showing the first draft to my wife (she cried,
she was so disgusted) and also showing the final book to my parents,
which was totally weird. (My dad really liked it. (It's not based
on him, luckily.) My mum didn't finish it and has never said a word
about it and I'm afraid to ask.)
>What's the greatest cricket match you've seen in person?
Easy: Australia v West Indies, Barbados 1999. (WI won by one wicket)
Australia v South Africa, Port Elizabeth 1997. (Aus won by two wickets)
> What do you learn about Australians by looking at their cricket?
Players: That they're hard on the outside but just as insecure
and brittle as anyone else on the inside.
Fans: That they're intensely loyal and patriotic and don't cope
well with losing. (Although I have to say the reaction to losing
the Ashes has been pretty gracious - most of us accept that England
was the better team.)