The Graduate, #author Rebecca Lim

 A gripping new legal thriller .....

New graduate Fei Fei Chou is an outlier at her prestigious law firm.

She's too quiet.
She wears too much makeup.
She's only here because the boss has a thing for Asians. 

But Fei isn't here to climb the corporate ladder - she's here for revenge.  
Thirty years ago, three schoolgirls were kidnapped and abused by a man who's never been identified. The information Fei needs to find him is buried somewhere in the firm's records. 
Deliberately placing herself in harm's way, Fei will uncover a secret history of power and privilege that haunts not only her firm, but the nation itself. 
Taut, riveting and blackly humorous, The Graduate is a mesmerising legal thriller and a masterfully dark crime debut from a beloved Australian writer Rebecca Lim.

To connect with Rebecca .....
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccalim_writer/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's good morning. Rebecca Lynn, welcome to Yellow Shelf. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. Oh, it's my pleasure. Congratulations. Your latest book, because you are a seasoned author, is out. Tell us all about your latest book, The Graduate.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

So it's actually my first work for adults, although I think adults have read some of my children's works before. And it's it's basically, I mean, I know you've come from a corporate background yourself, but I I worked in um you know private practice for a long time and I've now gone in-house in a um legal team in a bank. But um it's basically a bit of a piss take of you know the Australian legal industry because there's lots of archetypes that you know are right percent up there. And I think a lot of them are tough enough to, you know, deal with someone who's biting the hand that feeds. Um but I've also kind of threaded through that background, um, hopefully a compelling crime mystery, you know, thriller kind of storyline.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, definitely a thriller, Rebecca. Um tell us about, do you want to tell us about that transition from writing like young adults now into to writing for adults?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Well, the the great thing about writing for adults is you can swear with gay abandoned. So um, you know, often when you write for children, you're taking these really complex themes that you often deal with for adults as well, but you've got to kind of package it up in a in a more palatable way. So, for example, if you deal with like issues around suicide, you can't necessarily like you know hone in on the actual act itself. You've got to sort of talk around the issues. Um, writing for adults just lets me be my sort of unfiltered self. So there's a little bit of swearing in this, um, there's a bit of gore, it can be quite confronting, but you know, um issues like pedophilia and you know, revenge um from people who don't have any agency and sort of you know want to take back control over their lives, a lot of that is sort of dealt with in the novel.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah. And Rebecca, I I get that feeling. Um, obviously there's some lived experience in this book. Uh, and I'll ultimately, as you mentioned, that idea of revenge and injustice is is themes within the within the book.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, I think, you know, especially for female readers, like when you read crime, often like you're reading it because it's a taboo thing and it's thrilling and it's safe. You can sit in your bedroom and do it, but you can sort of like, you know, be part of these really horrific things and sort of process this kind of stuff in a really civilized way. But I think a lot of crime novels, when they're written by men, for example, um, you know, there's often an escalation of the horror around killing of children or killing of women, which is kind of, I guess it sort of doesn't center the victim. It sort of centers the thrills rather than the actual, you know, what are the ripples to society that happen when a woman or a child dies in a horrific way. So for this novel, like what I wanted to do is center a female heroine who doesn't look like she's got a lot of control over her life, but can actually strike back. Um, and then I also wanted to sort of like indicate how you know how awful these crimes are and how they kind of ripple through decades. Like, you know, if if they're resolved, which they are um often with you know crimes against children, and you know, this isn't sort of something I speak about a lot, but it's loosely based on the Mr. Krull crimes, which were never solved um in Victoria. So um, you know, what happens if, for example, you take that thought experiment of one of those victims of Mr. Krull coming back and trying to figure out who he was and you know taking back a bit of control over the narrative? So that's kind of the the engine room of the novel.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah. And Rebecca, do you want to um for anyone watching anywhere in the world? You've written a lot. Um, and do you want to talk to us about your process as of a writer? Do you smash it out? Do you you know go away on a holiday, a writer's retreat?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

What's your time for holidays? I don't know if you ever have time for holidays, you probably don't, but um no, I'm one of those people who um can sort of write anywhere. So, like when my kids are really little, I'd park in the school car park. I'd get a 20-pack of toilet rolls and I'll just put my laptop on top and just work while I was waiting for them. So um, for me, the process is really um as long as I've got a really strong idea of the world that the story is set in and the characters, so I can see them in 3D, I can see them when they're running away from someone, I know exactly what they like to eat, what their foibles are, and I make sure that everyone in the cast is really different. Um, provided I have a good hook to get into the story and a good ending, like I kind of know the ending before I finish. Um, everything else in between is just off-road. So I just go off-road in between. So I do sometimes plot, like if it gets really baggy and messy, I'll sit down with a pen and paper and try and work out, okay, you know, like let's there's a few too many red herrings in here, let's just cut this back a bit. But um, ordinarily, provided I can actually see the universe really clearly in the characters, I just let it go. So sometimes, you know, like a secondary character will step to the front and you'll think, you know, like in the beginning, they're not really that important, but then they become quite, you know, like a main character because they're really necessary to the plot. So it's really, I'm not, I think I'm a pantser, I think that's what they call it, rather than a plotter. And I don't use those um, you know, those wonderful softwares that you can get nowadays where you know you can post it and you can like change things around and you can change chapters and all that kind of thing. I'm really um old school and linear, so I just kind of write on a Word document and off I go.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, yeah, great. And Rebecca, you mentioned your corporate work. Um, what else do we need to know about you? You mentioned you're a mother, like tell us a bit, anything we need to know about Rebecca.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Okay, um, like I I don't know whether you like reading across genres, but I like reading everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, I think um if if you want to be a writer, like it's really necessary, I think, to get out of your company zone and read as much as you can. Um, so I read a lot, um, lots of non-fiction, really, really boring things because as part of my job, like I think I use my technical brain a lot. And so, you know, it's a good balance to the creative side because you pick up weird things about you know, mining companies or ESG that you can kind of you know comment on in your fiction. Um, but I think uh yeah, apart from reading a lot, like reading too much, um the thing with most of my work, so it looks kind of weird that I've moved from children's books into you know something really kind of gory and flashy and adult, but the through line to lots of my work is you know, trying to get more diverse Australian stories out there. So I know like you know, a lot of crime writers love that kind of you know domestic noir or outback noir type thing that we've got going on. But um what I wanted to do with this novel is to a crime novel in a sophisticated Australian setting, you know, where everyone is like actually smart and trying to take everyone else out. Um, because a lot of crime novels, and I'm not sort of saying anything pejorative about them, I love them, but they don't speak to me necessarily in my day-to-day life because I don't live in a country town and I don't, you know, like I don't know that kind of archetypal cast of characters. Um so for me it was really important to show smart Australians who are trying to like, you know, scheme and you know, like take revenge on each other and you know, do the kind of stuff that I guess in the corporate environment, we see this all the time, like with these kinds of personalities all the time. So it was just fun to play with, you know, the things I've seen over the decades and just kind of send that up a bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah. Wow, fabulous, Rebecca. Rebecca, if we're watching anywhere in the world and we want to connect with you, I follow you on Instagram and Facebook. But do you want to point us in the direction of where anyone who wants to get curious should go?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Um, a lot of my um, like a lot of my literary friends say that I'm a bit stealth uh online. So really um you could probably only connect with me on Instagram or Facebook or my agent Annabelle Barker Literary. So if you wanted to like, you know, get through to her for some reason, that that would be the way to go. But I don't really, unlike you, I'm not I'm not very extroverted and I'm quite afraid of people. So um I don't really have much of a presence, I don't think. But you know, you can find me on those two channels. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Well, look, that's okay. We all don't need to be introverts or extroverts. Uh but what I'll do, Rebecca, I'll put some links in uh the show notes to where you know the audience can obtain the book and and maybe some links just to if they're curious about you as an author and even your back work. Um, I'll put some put some links in. Rebecca. Yeah, all the best with the book. Uh are you gonna keep writing? Is that the plan?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Hopefully. Like I'm kind of reading some arcane, um, you know, legal scam type uh nonfiction books at the moment to try and work out a new plot. So hopefully if people um react well to the graduate, they'll be hopefully a follow-up with this particular character. So we'll see how we go.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Awesome. Well, go and get the graduate. Uh if you do write again, which I kind of think you probably will eventually, please come back and share with Yellow Shelf. I'd love that.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Thanks so much, Joanna. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Cheers.