Podcasts Other The Wheeler Centre Take Home Reading: Sean O'Beirne

Take Home Reading: Sean O'Beirne

Published: June 29, 2020, 3:41 a.m.

Photograph of Sean O'Beirne next to the cover of his book, 'A Couple of Things Before the End', featuring a photograph of an old television monitor in front of a curtain with sun filtering through it

Take Home Reading is a new short-form audio series for readers and writers – shining a spotlight on Australian writers with recently released books. In each instalment, you’ll be introduced to a writer, learn a little about what they’ve been reading lately, and hear a short reading from their latest work. Find it on the Wheeler Centre podcast.

In this episode we’re talking to Sean O’Beirne about his debut short story collection, A Couple of Things Before the End. 

A bitingly satirical collection, A Couple of Things Before the End employs a remarkable range of voices to explore suburban end times.  

'What happens if you give a very white, very male, very working class people sort of a whole country… you know, the idea of Australia as the working man’s paradise, or the lucky country, … [what are] the strangenesses and the distortions that can go along with that? … And if you can’t participate... you’ve gotta have a kind of argument to have with the country and what the hell you’re going to be able to do here.'

Sean was programmed to appear in our Next Big Thing: Australiana Edition, which was unfortunately cancelled as part of our preventative measures to stem the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.

A Couple of Things Before the End is out now through Back Inc.