‘A political career is not a bad training ground for writing fiction,’ Lindsay Tanner has said. 

Since leaving the chamber in 2010, the former federal politician has devoted much of his time to the printed page – though it’s only recently that fiction has become his focus. His first book, Sideshow, critiqued the Australian media environment, arguing that spin doctors and tightening news cycles were ‘dumbing down democracy’. 

With his debut novel, Comfort Zone, Tanner is again engaging with a hot topic in Australian political discourse, multiculturalism, however he tackles the theme from a markedly different perspective. His story’s protagonist is not a former finance minister, but a pot-bellied cabbie who finds himself drawn into a vortex of drug-dealing and criminal violence.

Tanner is not your average ex-politician and certainly not your average author. Join him for a unique discussion on writing, life after politics … and the job of lying for a living. In conversation with Emily Sexton.

Books and Ideas at Montalto series sound design and music: Jon Tjhia.