The Trivia Man Is Coming

When you’ve been working on a manuscript for several years and you finally submit the finished product to your publisher, it’s incredibly nerve-racking. A couple of weeks pass without a word, and by then you’ve convinced yourself that they hate your whimsical, offbeat story but are too polite to tell you so.

Then an email pings into your inbox from the publisher entitled ‘The Trivia Man’. It takes a while to summon the courage to open it. You come up with a series of delaying tactics – a cup of tea, a Tim Tam (or two), a ball game with the dog, another cup of tea – but eventually you have to return to your laptop and face the inevitable. You click on the email and start to read. Here is what it says:

‘I loved it. Such beautiful characters and a heart-warming story . . . an enchanting book’.

‘The Trivia Man’ is very special to me for many reasons, but I can’t go into them without giving away the plot. Suffice it to say that the book explores a range of issues – from the dangers of stereotyping people to the need we all have to find a place to belong.

As for genre, the book is hard to classify. There’s romance in the story but it’s not romantic fiction. There’s humour but it’s not a comedy. There’s a good amount of nostalgia but the setting is contemporary rather than historical. In a nutshell, ‘The Trivia Man’ is funny, sweet, sad and quirky. I hope you'll like it. And I'll let you into a secret -  it's my favourite of all the books I've written.

*‘The Trivia Man’ will be released by Random House Books Australia on 1 June  2015.

P.S. For my personal connection with all things related to trivia, see: 'Trivia Isn't Trivial'.

Text and illustrations: Deborah O'Brien

6 December, 2014