Aussie Authors I have loved: Steve Tolz, Richard Flanagan, and Tim Winton

Oh the Aussies... 20 million people, 21 million Kangaroos, and so many good authors... I must mention three, to begin with, for these three are the Antipodean apex predators of novel writing, just incomparable.

Franz Kafka said, "A novel should be an axe for the frozen seas around us." If that is the case, thenSteve Totlz then would be considered a chainsaw. Born in Sydney, Toltz is Vonnegut on a meth high with Hunter S. Thompson riding on his shoulder and whispering in his ear. His first novel, "A Fraction of the Whole" from 2008, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. That's right, his first novel. Not only his first novel, though, his first book. To say that I anticipated his second with a certain fervor over the last eight years would be to downplay the annoyance I gave to my friend who sends me news of book releases (sorry again Super G) as I must have asked her a dozen times if he'd written anything since. Well, finally, he did. In 2016 he released "Quicksand" and my hands still shake from whatever nerve damage that lumberjacks get from holding a vibrating chainsaw for so long. This man can write and it's not for the feint of heart.

Tom Robbins said "Everything in our universe is a projection of our conscious. So all writers are realists.", and Richard Flanagan a native of Tasmania epitomizes that fact. He has moved me to tears more than any other writer with his stories of human struggle, endurance, survival, and growth. A realist even when he explores magical realism in "Goulds Book of Fish", he could be Merlin for the spell he weaves. This work is on my 'ten books to be stranded on a desert island wish list.

• The Sound of One Hand Clapping is a straining, seam -tressing, cowl birth of a novel, simply amazing literature. There's a reason it is studied in college courses, and why they made a movie out of if (which I've yet to see).

• Death of a River Guide is his freshman work, and it shows where he was going - and I can say with glee, he got there! - with a depth of feeling for his characters that is breathtaking.

• The Long Road to the Deep North, which won the Man Booker Prize a couple of years back, is a masterwork for making a forest from trees so to speak. A story of Australian POW's in WWII, in lesser hands it could have been nothing more than pain porn, in his hands it is reminiscent of early Elie Wiesel (We pray you're at rest Elie, a blessing on your name).

My mates for Oz, west coasters, Perth area lads, crayfish fisherman turned yachties for the rich in the South of France, all said for years that Tim Winton was the man. Before I read him, they'd only been right about VB being better than XXXX (beer brands for the uneducated, Aussies don't actually drink Fosters just as Yanks don't actually drink Budweiser), then I read Tim Winton and I was humbled and amazed (that they were right about so much too:). "Dirt Music" is a portrait of the area where my friends grew up as well as being a story of what happens when people really look into their own souls. He has so many other works of merit and note that I recently saw a book advertised in the New York Review of Books that is an examination of his literature. Yep, a freaking Phd thesis turned into a commercially successful book for sale on a novel writer that is so good it's in the NYRB. What could I possibly write here that could say more than that?

There are so many other great writers from Australia and New Zealand...I'll wager you'll go looking for them if you start with these three.