Debra Adelaide

What sparked The Household Guide to Dying?
My novel was prompted my several things, but chiefly a desire to try and demystify dying and death by making it ordinary and everyday — and comical. My curiosity about the topic meant I was also trying to make sense of dying for myself, and to make it less threatening, however that's not to say this novel is autobiographical (as far as I know I'm reasonably fit and healthy). However the main questions in my mind were: 'What if I were dying before my time? What would I do? How would I prepare? What would become important, and what would not?'

Please set the scene of the novel for us.

This is a contemporary novel, set partly in an unnamed suburban area of Sydney and partly in the immediate and then more distant past in a remote town in the middle of Queensland, called Amethyst. Although she is dying of cancer, Delia is compelled to leave her home and family and travel back to Amethyst. Here she lived as a young single mother and met her husband, Archie, and suffered a terrible personal loss; her return is an attempt to come to terms with that loss and to tie up other loose ends of her emotional life. The novel commences in spring (which in Sydney, of course, is in October) with Delia contemplating her imminent death and reflecting wryly on the several ironies in her life that have brought her to this point.

Do you have a particular attachment to any of the characters or places in the novel? If so, which one(s) and why?
I think I am attached to Archie as he seems to be a very appealing husband. He is a gardener, he can fix things, he understands a great deal without being too emotionally complicated. Of course I do like Delia a great deal, for I have invested much in her (it is hard — and possibly pointless — to write an entire novel in the voice of a character whom you do not like), however I am aware of her shortcomings: she can be overbearing and irrational, and is prone to mad and manic behaviour.

And of all the places in the novel, I am very fond of the chicken run in Delia and Archie's back yard.  In my mind it is a quiet, homely, comforting sort of place, which is why at times Delia is placed there, reflecting upon certain matters. She finds unexpected solace and well as inspiration when she is with her chickens. In fact, now that I think about it, the chickens (there are five) are also likeable characters. 

What are you reading at the moment?

I usually have several books on the go and right now I am reading Alice Munro, having picked up two earlier collections of her stories that I've not previously read, Friend of My Youth and The Love of a Good Woman.  And my other reading matter is Nabokov's Lolita, which I regularly reread. This time round I am reading it very slowly and naturally seeing more in it, but I'm expecting that something approaching complete understanding won't happen for several more decades. Next on my pile is Andrea Barrett's The Air We Breathe (her earlier novella, Ship Fever, was quietly sublime, and I have a fondness for what you might call disease fiction) and then Preeta Samarasan's Evening is the Whole Day, which I see is coincidentally another Orange Prize longlistee.  

What are you working on now?
My new novel, which is best described in one word: incipient. However I can say that while it is nothing like The Household Guide to Dying, it also a contemporary novel. My other writing projects (which I usually turn to when the novel writing is not progressing particularly well) are a series of shorter fictions, and some essays on the theme of reading.