Malcolm Knox interviews Steve Toltz, author of the upcoming A Fraction of the Whole, in "The Sydney Morning Herald".
As a schoolboy, when he didn't know the answers to questions in biology tests, Steve Toltz would write down some silly invention for his own amusement. The moral challenge came when he did know the correct answer and still wanted to make something up. "I struggled with that," he says, "but the impulse against seriousness eventually won out." Given extravagant free reign, Toltz's lifelong battle with seriousness has resulted in more than a decade of wandering the earth and A Fraction Of The Whole, his comical, philosophical, picaresque, hugely enjoyable first novel.You can read extracts from the novel on the Penguin href="http://www.afractionofthewhole.com/" target=new>website.
