Elliot Perlman
Elliot Perlman
Elliot Perlmanis an Australian author and barrister. He has written three novels and one short story collection...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth7 May 1964
CountryAustralia
appearing avoid characters children dialogue history laying lecturing opposed somewhat
I like dialogue in novels. I wanted to avoid laying history on with a trowel - appearing to be lecturing, as opposed to the characters lecturing their children or students. Dialogue can humanise the story and make it go down somewhat more smoothly.
barriers change good people sure trying work
In my work, I'm always trying not to put barriers up between the 'good poor' and the 'bad poor.' I'm not sure my work will change things much, but at the very least, you want to make people feel that they are not alone.
contrary frequently literary mostly speaking women
I know that at literary festivals I'm speaking mostly to middle-class women, who frequently vote in a way that is contrary to how I'd like them to vote.
imagination literary smallest
I'll be happy if I can gain even the smallest place inside the literary imagination of U.S. readers.
appearing bookstores
After a while, if you're a writer, you want to start appearing in the bookstores of the place you're living in.
born fabulous interpret irrational life name pickup prefer remotely rock sign sounds star utterly
I'm a Taurus, which sounds like the name of a pickup truck. I'd prefer to be born under the sign of the rock wallaby. If you're going to interpret your life pursuant to an utterly irrational dogma, why can't it have a cute mascot? Rock wallabies really are fabulous animals, and in any remotely just world, they would have their own star sign.
call dark life remember spoken time topic
I can't really remember a time in my life when I didn't know something about what we call the Holocaust. It was this dark topic that I would know more about when I got older, but which was spoken about in hushed tones.
talking names australia
As my name might suggest, I'm Jewish. My grandparents were Polish and Russian Jews who came to Australia in the late 1920s, and had they not, we wouldn't be talking now.
perfect people gestures
Listen- all that she was then, all that she is now, those gestures, everything I remember but won't or can't articulate anymore, the perfect words that are somehow made imperfect when used to describe her and all that should remain unsaid about her- it is all unsupported by reason. I know that. But that enigmatic calm that attaches itself to people in the presence of reason- it's something from which I haven't been able to take comfort, not reliably, not since her.
morning wall hands
It's like the smell of burned toast. You made the toast. You looked forward to it. You even enjoyed making it, but it burned. What were you doing? Was it your fault? It doesn't matter anymore. You open the window, but only the very top layer of the smell goes away. The rest remains around you. It's the walls. You leave the room, but it's on your clothes. You change your clothes, but it's in your hair. It's on the thin skin on the tops of your hand. And in the morning, it's still there.
reason good-things should
I hold him to my chest. My love for him is the only unequivocally good thing I know is always there inside of me. It is the reason I should be spared all that is coming, the only reason.
sleep water wake-up
You know you're in love with somebody when you wake up next to them, comfortable despite your breath smelling like the week-old water at the bottom of a vase, when you are terribly excited to see them, to talk to them again, having missed them after all that sleep.
relationship lonely men
What is it about men that make women so lonely?
way use weapons
You would love the way he sees you. He uses you as a weapon against himself and not merely because you did