North Melbourne Books: Australians eat roughly three times more meat than the global average. The main argument of On Eating Meat is that Australians should eat less meat, of a better quality that is also ethically produced. This would provide a win for the environment, animals and human health. Sounds easy, but there are many impediments to achieving this goal, mainly seductive cheap prices and a lack of information about how commercial meat production works. What are the most effective steps consumers can take to bring about the sort of change you advocate?

Matthew Evans: The nice thing about this change is that we are all (well, all meat eaters), empowered through our purchases. And because we eat three times a day, and have to eat, we’re all given this opportunity to make better decisions quite often. I think the first thing to recognise is that all meat isn’t equal, that all farming systems aren’t the same, and that every time you make a better decision you encourage better farming.

That’s true whatever you eat. Farmers only do things because we ask it of them. If we want better quality housing for pigs. If we want less antibiotic use. If we want animals to be able to express their instincts, then farmers will do that on our behalf, but it might have an in built cost. That cost can be offset by buying less meat, but better quality higher welfare meat. It might involve wasting less of what is produced. But ultimately, it’s small decisions by meat eaters that has the greatest potential to change the momentum in our farming systems.

For most of us, eating less meat won’t destroy our gastronomic and cultural well being, it could well be better for our bodies, and it is potentially a great thing for animals, the planet and the farmers who grow things in our name.

NMB: It was alarming to read how much secrecy there is around intensive animal farming. You tried to get access to these big farms but were frustrated at every step. So much secrecy makes you wonder what there is to hide. Isn’t there enough government regulation to ensure intensive farming operations are being run to community standards, or do we need more?

ME: Government regulation is about keeping industry running, and the day to day inspections and checks are governed by people who are part of a very small clique. What their standards are don’t necessarily match community standards. Most Australians would be appalled at how some of our animals are raised, how confined they are, how restrictive the conditions are in terms of normal, instinctual behaviour. Leaving it to the industry groups, who hold power in many settings relating to regulation, and the people who don’t necessarily share general community standards because they are steeped in the industry, is a recipe for disaster.

A good example is the sow stall, essentially a tiny pig cage that doesn’t allow the mother pig to turn around or walk, but only stand, eat, defecate, and lie. These are still used routinely in about 30% of Australian piggeries, and the mother pigs live in them virtually all their adult lives. You and I would see them as a cage, a jail. The industry sees them as a way to stop sows fighting.

Do they meet general community expectations? No, according to research, and according to one of our largest supermarkets, Coles, who insisted that all pork sold under the Coles brand was sow-stall free a few years ago. The industry resisted, but Coles knew their customers cared, so forced the change on the farms. There is no way this would’ve happened if the industry was left to decide it for themselves. Because of this change, based on small customers (you and I), and large customers (Coles), 70% of mother pigs in Australia are now more able to express social behaviour and at least move in more ways than just standing and lying down.

NMB: Your book has a wealth of fascinating research that will amaze and shock eaters of all persuasions – carnivore, vegetarian and vegan. As a consequence, the book also raises a lot of ethical questions, giving On Eating Meat a philosophical aspect. Did you change your mind about anything during the writing process, or learn anything that came as a complete surprise?

ME: I think the biggest surprise came in the complexity of farming systems, and discovering the research which points to animals being part of a good farming system in some cases, and able to produce more variety, more nutrient dense food, in the broader picture. I guess it makes sense that an ecosystem, which a good farm should be, is reliant on animals as well as plants, and that to exclude animals is arbitrary and goes against ecological principles. But to see it on our farm, and in the research that is now emerging, made more sense of our historic and cultural attachment to using animals for food.

All farming land isn’t the same, and while we’ve ignored basic principles in much of the way we grow food (both plant and animal based) in recent history, the future is not necessarily meat free. But it has to include a  much cleverer use of land and fossil fuels than we currently practice. The other thing that really surprised me along these lines is that 70% of the world’s food is produced by smallholders, small farms, (and much of this by women). We tend in Australia to think of big monoculture farms as the norm (partly through our geography and partly because so much of the media and talk around animal production is tainted by American stats), but the reality is small, multi-species farms are often the norm, feed much of the world, and can provide a blueprint for how we can feed a growing population nutrient rich food in the longer term.

NMB: It seems like you have a love-hate relationship with vegans, as they are both praised and criticised in your writing. In essence, you’d like to work with the vegan community to bring about better animal welfare standards. Are you confident the book will open out the debate a bit more on this front?

ME: Not really love/hate relationship, but yes, I do bring up some criticisms of some vegans. I also praise and criticise farmers. I think some vegan principles are great, but I don’t see militant veganism as helpful. It’s a belief system, just as some paleo people have strident belief systems, and as do Buddhists and Christians and Hindus. But trying to force your belief systems on someone else is doomed to failure. Some activism is helpful in motivating those already converted, but it’s a proven strategy that attack, threats, and anger don’t change minds.

The problem isn’t that some people don’t want to eat meat, and some people want you to eat a whole lot of meat, it’s about those at the radical ends imposing beliefs on others. We don’t force people to ride electric bikes (probably a lot better for the environment than a car). We wouldn’t put up with people lying on the street in Melbourne stopping traffic to condemn all those that don’t use wood that is Forest Stewardship Council approved. It wouldn’t be okay for 2% of the population to insist that we all home school our kids because moving kids around in buses and cars lead to wallaby deaths and greenhouse gas emissions. It isn’t appropriate for me to write death threats and abusive emails to people who eat processed food no matter how much I think it’s an abomination, and I don’t think that people who practice anti-social behaviour in the name of veganism should be let off the hook either.

Meat eating is a small impact in terms of all human impact on the world, and if you want to have no impact on animals and the environment, the only way is to not exist. We have to recognise that everything we do has an impact, and that we all have different priorities, based on our income, our geography, our ancestry, our history. We can all make our own choices around ethics, based on our own belief systems, but being preachy about someone else’s meat eating while you’re wearing non-organic cotton, or have bought cherries where the nets kill thousands of birds each year, smacks of the hypocrisy that those very people rail against.

The great news is that most vegans, like most of the rest of us, don’t define themselves by their diet or one aspect of their belief system. Most vegans define themselves as humans, who would like to see us do better for the animals in our care. And so it’s easy to work with people willing to have grown up conversations about the best way forward, about lives won and lost, and the best way to build communities, societies, nations, while not buggering up the world in the process.

NMB: What books are you enjoying at the moment?

ME: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a brilliant look at what we do, and don’t, know about plants. Like how they talk to each other. How they emit sound. How they tend to sick neighbours. How they have memory despite no recognisable central nervous system. It’s a good way to start to understand what we don’t understand about forests and the environment we so readily take for granted. A more esoteric read is Thus Spoke the Plants by Sydney based researcher Monica Gagliano, which explores some similar themes in a more personal, mind altering way (and yes, while Monica is a scientist by trade, she does take a few mind altering things along the way).

Rusted Off, by Gabrielle Chan, about how the bush feels alienated from the city, and from the political cycle. Written by a journalist who moved from the city a long time ago, she has insights into the widening gulf between the bush and the suburbs, and what that means for all of us.

The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton. Well, I’m excited about it in anticipation! I'm just about to launch into this one. I reckon Tim captures the landscape of WA beautifully, and he paints characters so well that there’s hardly a book of his that hasn’t left me really moved. He captures our flaws, our hopes, our strange alliances so well, and does it with a good Aussie voice, which is all too rare.

On Eating Meat: The Truth About Its Production and the Ethics of Eating It, by Matthew Evans. Murdoch Books. $32.99

NMB: The story has a lot of humour. It's hilarious how Mama Bear urges Henry to eat lollies and chocolate cake for dinner. Does your work as a cartoonist sometimes influence your children's books?

LFW: Absolutely. And in many different ways: from finding the right composition and the right gesture, to timing a joke, to trying to predict and control the reader's expectations in order to subvert them to humorous effect, and on and on.

My wonderful literary agent, Dan Lazar, encouraged me early on to try to think of each page or spread as a cartoon, in order to make sure that each one could stand on its own, and to avoid having any boring beats (like characters just going from one place to another), or wasted space. I don't separate cartoon ideas and story ideas; they all go in the same notebook and then I see what they develop into when I start playing around with them. Humor never stops being fascinating and slippery. ​

(Author photo Julian Dolman).

North Melbourne Books: When eleven-year-old Tippy Chan's mother goes on a short holiday, she is left in the care of her fabulous and fun Uncle Pike and his new boyfriend, Devon. Suddenly a grisly murder happens in their small town, Riverstone, causing Tippy and Uncle Pike form The Nancys, a crime solving club inspired by their joint love of Nancy Drew mysteries.

The story is a mixture of glittering comedy, great characters, a gently ironic, sometimes droll narration by Tippy and a page-turning crime mystery. It's quite an original book. How did you come up with the idea for the novel?

R.W.R. McDonald: It started in 2006 with an internal thread of thought from Tippy (before I knew it was Tippy). The thought was this kid talking about her friend Todd Landers and her looking for clues in a murder. It really followed on from that. I wanted to know who this kid was and why and how she would be investigating a murder. From there her irresponsible babysitting Uncle Pike came into focus and his new boyfriend Devon and it led on from there. For ten years they rattled around and formed until I started writing the first draft. I was discovering them, the other characters, and the story as I went along.

NMB: Tippy is a great character. She's only eleven, but is mature beyond her years, still dealing with the grief of losing her father. Was she based on anyone?

RM: My two incredible daughters are around Tippy’s age and similar in some ways but I had made a conscious decision from the beginning of writing The Nancys not to plagiarise their childhood or dialogue. For research though my daughters were fantastic sources of information and for running lines with, for example asking them whether they or their friends would use certain words or phrases etc.

I never base my characters on real people. For me they are their own entities, they may share a similar trait to someone, or sometimes I can recognise a part of myself but otherwise they seem to come into their own as I write further into the story.

I got to know Tippy over many re-drafts. Early on I was very protective of her, not wanting her to feel any pain. It wasn’t until I let go and allowed her character to experience the world that I got to know her better.

NMB: We learn that Uncle Pike fled New Zealand for Sydney as a teenager and when he returns to Riverstone, there is still emotional baggage from his past that needs to be sorted out. It's tempting to ask, did you add any autobiographical elements to the story?

RM: I guess all of the novel has some part of my lived experience in one way or another (except for the murder of course!). I did leave home for boarding school as a teenager and from there never returned home to live except to visit my family. As I grew older and travelled I slowly began to see the beauty in a place I once described as a “dump” – albeit only in my teenage years!

What I did not anticipate in writing a novel was the almost meta-data effect. Seeing patterns in the story which I had not consciously intended. I think it is fascinating tapping into the subconscious through writing, things appear on the page that at the time you have no idea what they mean or why they are there – for example a line of dialogue from a character which makes no immediate sense but you just know it’s important - and it is only much later, sometimes a couple of drafts later, that suddenly something clicks and you realise why it was there the whole time. It really is a type of magic.

NMB: The Nancys has many comic elements. There are so many brilliant characters, especially Uncle Pike and Devon. You have an ebullient style. It reminded me a bit of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series, perhaps crossed with The Wizard of Oz (Tippy does overcome a lot with the help of her mercurial uncle and his boyfriend). Who are the writers that inspire you the most?

RM: All of them, published and unpublished, but that is probably cheating the answer. Writers who have informed and challenged my idea of story are across genre and form. This list really is only the tip of the iceberg: Roald Dhal, Virginia Woolf, Dr Seuss, Margaret Mahy, Hunter S. Thompson, Cormac McCarthy, e. e. cummings, Carolyn Keene, Victor Canning, Ngaio Marsh, Marianne Keyes, Ben Okri, Sylvia Plath, Maurice Gee, Toni Jordan, Salman Rushdie, Emily Bronte, Agatha Christie, Paddy O’Reilly, Kerri Hume, Witi Ihimeara, Toni Morrison, Charlie Kaufman, Stevie Smith – really the list goes on and on!

NMB: What books are you enjoying reading at the moment?

RM: The Shining Wall by Melissa Ferguson and Painting in the Shadows by Katherine Kovacic with Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, Room for a Stranger by Melanie Cheng and Bodies of Men by Nigel Featherstone lined up next. My to be read pile keeps growing!!!

The Nancys, by R.W.R. McDonald. Published by Allen & Unwin. $29.99

North Melbourne Books: Blue Lake concentrates on a forgotten part of Melbourne’s history: the West Melbourne shanty town known as the Dudley Flats. This slum area was active between the 1920s and 1950s and was located around the area where the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel now stands. Its residents for the most part made a living scavenging through the railway and council tips that were based at the site.

What made you want to write about such an unprepossessing part of the city’s history?

David Sornig: I've always had a strong imagination for the hidden layers of places, some kind of intuition or even some hope that, hiding behind the unremarkable, empty, downright ugly or ruined areas that often go unnoticed in cities, there is something a little more wondrous to see or necessary to understand, places where time can be felt plurally. It's probably the same part of the imagination that appeals to readers of Harry Potter who secretly (or not so secretly) hope that at Platform 9 3/4 there really is a portal to that other world. It was in part what drew me toward setting my first book in Berlin, a city of many historical ghosts and erased histories. I might, in another life, have become an archaeologist.

The area Blue Lake centres on, which includes the now heavily-industrialised expanse of land between Docklands and West Melbourne in the east and the Maribyrnong River to the west has always suggested itself to me to be one of those plural places, but it was an area I had only ever peripherally been familiar with. When it caught my attention three or four years ago I began looking into its history in various archives. I discovered that while there was a truly fascinating history to put together about the drained, dredged and filled-in wetland and the Dudley Flats shanty town, it was incredibly fragmented. I could scarcely believe it hadn’t been told before, so writing it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

NMB:  Your book concentrates on three residents of the Dudley Flats: Elsie Williams, a singer and alcoholic, born in Bendigo to Afro-Caribbean parents; Lauder Rogge, a German man who lived on a boat moored on the Yarra; and Jack Peacock, a trader who made a decent living scavenging off the garbage tips. How did you find these particular characters and what fascinated you about them?

DS: During my early research for Blue Lake, particularly as it looked into the residents of Dudley Flats, the names of these three kept coming up in the public record, mostly in newspaper reports. There were very clear public versions of all three: Williams was the failed singer and violent drunk; Peacock was the larrikin-like ‘King of Dudley Flats’; and Rogge was the strange hermit who lived with a large number of dogs on the stranded hulk of his schooner. While all three ended up living on the margins of a stable life in the Dudley Flats area, I couldn’t help but wonder what the circumstances were that had brought them there. The further I went into the archive to piece together their biographies the more clear it became that they were shaped not only by their individual experiences, but also by some of the larger social and historical forces that were at work in Australia and globally during the first half of the 20th century. Economics, geopolitics, war, racism and popular culture all played a role in delivering them to the Dudley Flats area and the way they lived there. These forces, together with the very specific stories and individual tragedies of the three, made them incredibly compelling to me as humans and I felt a responsibility to tell those stories as best I could.

NMB: There’s a great sympathy for the down and out in Blue Lake. In many ways, characters like Elsie, Lauder and Jack make you think about Melbourne today, especially with so many homeless living on the city’s streets. Did the Melbourne you see today in any way help you imagine its past?

DS: Definitely. There were some uncanny parallels that emerged while I was writing the book, particularly during late January 2017 when there was a lot of media attention – and notable tabloid outrage – at what was portrayed as the failure of local and state government authorities and police to act decisively over the summer holidays to clear the group of people who been sleeping rough outside Flinders Street Station. The media concern appeared to have more to do with the ‘embarrassing’ visibility of this homelessness than with its underlying causes. The media accusations of summer holiday ineptitude in Melbourne’s newspapers that summer were scarcely any different to the headlines and stories that appeared regarding Dudley Flats during the summer of 1937/38. It reminded me that the lives of individuals run deeper and are shaped by circumstances that exceed the sometimes-shallow portrayal of them in the media.


NMB: Blue Lake very much has a novelist’s sensibility, with its brooding atmosphere and well-developed portraits. Did you have any particular plan when you set out to write the book or did it simply evolve?

DS: I was tempted, very early on in the process of writing as I came across some of the extraordinary circumstances of the lives of these people, and imagined the kind of knowledge they must have had about the sordid understorey of middle class Melbourne life, aspects of life that weren’t so well hidden on Dudley Flats, to write a novel rather than a work of non-fiction. But that didn’t last for long, as it became clear that my first responsibility was to tell the most accurate (and vivid) version I could of the largely untold story of the place and its people. As the book evolved it seemed that the best way to do this was to represent them first of all with an eye on the archival traces as they emerged chronologically. This very clearly suggested the final thematic structure of the book as it portrays the shift from the precolonial wetland’s unity to its post-settlement degradation, the chaos that took hold if it, the attempt to impose an order on it, and the persistence, even as its cosmetic traces have been mostly erased, of its original coherence.

NMB: What books are you enjoying reading at the moment?

DS: I always have four or five books on the go, so sometimes it takes me ages to finish anything, but I’ve most recently very-swiftly consumed Patti Smith’s Just Kids, M-Train and her most-recent little title, Devotion. It’s an account of the meandering and instinctive creative process she follows from Simone Weil to Albert Camus to eventually write a story titled ‘Devotion’ which is also included in the book. As a friend recently said to me: Patti Smith lives in a poem. It’s true and I envy her. I’m also reading Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame of Paris, which I’m enjoying at a number of levels, but mostly for the moment when, after pages and pages of encyclopaedic (and sometimes frankly dull) description of 15th century Paris, it finally lands on an extraordinary few paragraphs that describe the tolling of Paris’ church bells as an orchestra.

Blue Lake: Finding Dudley Flats and the West Melbourne Swamp, by David Sornig. Pubished by Scribe. RRP: $35