Novel’s tale of self-love versus selfishness

The author of the acclaimed Love & Virtue is back with her second novel: a tale of sisters, selfishness, and the lies we tell ourselves and each other.

Seeing Other People by Diana Reid has just been released through Ultimo Press, and the Sydney-based writer will be visiting Geelong next week for an in-conversation event.

Set in Sydney in the present day, the novel begins after two years of lockdowns, and there’s change in the air. Corporate high-flyer Eleanor has just broken up with her boyfriend, while Charlie’s career as an actress is starting up again.

The sisters are finally ready to pursue their dreams – relationships, career, family – but only if they can work out what it is they really want.

When principles and desires clash, Eleanor and Charlie are forced to ask: where is the line between self-love and selfishness? In all their confusion, mistakes will be made and lies will be told as they reckon with the limits of their own self-awareness.

Speaking earlier this week, Reid said she had always been interested in the way people perform different versions of themselves, depending on the dynamics of the situation.

“In my first book, my young narrator was a different version of herself as she moved through different institutions. I think families are also great fodder for that, because a lot of people play a role in their family and often that role doesn’t really change over time. In a lot of people’s experience, in their family they revert to the exact dynamic they had when they were children around the same table.

“Especially in this book, as they’re sisters, they kind of adopt the same social worlds so they have to navigate whether they’re bringing their childhood selves or their adult selves to those situations.”

Reid said the repeated switching of viewpoints between different characters was something she wanted to do from the outset.

“That was probably a reaction to my first book, which was all written from one perspective, it had a first-person narrator. I think my ambition for it was to write a story where you could empathise with all parties in the conflict at the same time, even though they were all doing the wrong thing.”

An Australian bestseller, Love & Virtue received many plaudits, including winner of the ABIA Book of the Year Award, the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award, the ABA Booksellers’ Choice Fiction Book of the Year Award, and the MUD Literary Prize.

Ultimo Press signed with Reid to publish two novels, and Reid said she received “very good advice” to start her second novel as soon as she handed in Love & Virtue, and had already completed an early draft of Seeing Other People by the time Love & Virtue was released.

“I definitely found it harder… it took twice as long, and I wrote more that I then threw out, but I don’t think that was because of the classic second book pressure. Because no-one had really read the first one yet, I couldn’t be in conflict with that, but also I think I never expected Love & Virtue to be published; it was just something I did to pass the time in lockdown.”

Diana Reid will be in conversation with Olivia Fleetwood at the The KO Creative Studio, 1/14 Lambert Avenue, Newtown in association with The Book Bird on Monday, October 24 from 6-8pm.

Tickets are $30 and include wine, non-alcoholic drinks and light snacks.

To book, head to theko.com.au/whats-on/2022/10/24/seeing-other-people-diana-reid-in-conversation