As Peter Temple's The Broken Shore gains a following in the US, Elisabeth Vincentelli interviews the author for "Time Out New York". As some will know, or will find out by reading this piece, Temple was originally from South Africa, and has a very interesting way of looking at parts of Australian life:
Melbourne is a strange place, where the sensibilities of Europe meet the kind of manly, testosterone-charged Sydney atmosphere. It likes things of the mind. The winters are only enlivened by sitting in pubs arguing about politics, philosophy and football. You're not a proper intellectual there unless you can move from Kierkegaard to football in one sentence. And it's intensely tribal because Melbourne was originally divided into the territories of its football teams, and these teams are divided along class, religious and family lines.
