Acclaimed author M.L. Stedman on isolation, impossible choices, and why she loves "earbooks"

M.L. Stedman has "literally hundreds" of audiobooks on her phone. She has been a devoted audiobook listener since the days of CD boxes, and knows what makes a great one: the perfect blend of brilliant text and a great voice. Now, with A Far-flung Life, narrated by acclaimed Australian actor Lewis Fitz-Gerald, she's given listeners that exquisite combination. Set on a remote Western Australian sheep station, the novel explores how one ordinary moment can shatter a family, and test the limits of love and loyalty.

Emma Rusher: You've previously written powerfully about wanting readers to be free to fully inhabit the worlds you create. Tell us a little more about that.

M.L. Stedman: I think that in some ways, the writer does only half the job of creating a novel—it’s up to the reader to bring it to life in their own way, using their own imagination. The more I say about the book outside its pages, the more I may be encroaching on the reader’s freedom to interpret the story. When I write, I always try to see situations from each character’s point of view, and I try not to editorialise. Above all, where there is a dilemma to be examined, I like to leave the reader free to reach their own conclusion about what to do, and I’m interested by how vigorously people often disagree on what this is.

Like The Light Between Oceans, A Far-flung Life is set in extreme isolation. Instead of a lighthouse island, this time you take us to a sheep station in Western Australia. What is it about these remote places that allows you to explore the stark moral terrain of your characters?

I think the phrase "stark moral terrain" in this context may be a reference to the impossible choices some characters face. There’s something about an isolated setting that concentrates focus, like the sun through a magnifying glass, building intensity. There are fewer distractions, fewer escapes; issues become much more distilled. Another by-product of a remote setting is that characters can lack "moral mirrors"—people who might reflect back to them an impression of what they’ve done. The physical isolation echoes the isolation characters feel as they are caught within their dilemmas, unable to unburden themselves because to do so will jeopardise an innocent party.

In neither book is there a simple, straightforward solution to a situation. Also, they each feature very small communities, where there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to find refuge in anonymity, which raises the stakes.

We hear you’re a great fan of audiobooks. Can you share with us a little of your experience as an audiobook listener?

I am indeed a fan. I’ve been listening to "earbooks," as I call them, since the days when you had to buy boxes of CDs. There’s something wonderful about being read to, particularly by the likes of Sean Barrett or Stephanie Cole. When I discover a great voice like that, I often just buy an audiobook because of the reader, and as a result, end up discovering an author whose work I didn’t know.

And of course, with an audiobook, you can be reading pretty much anywhere or any time—driving; at an airport; in the dentist’s waiting room; weeding the garden: all suddenly become opportunities to listen to a brilliant book. I have literally hundreds of audiobooks on my phone, and some I’ve listened to countless times. I’m always keen to find recommendations of the perfect blend of great text read by a great voice, so I’ll end by suggesting just one of dozens I could propose: Jeremy Irons reading Brideshead Revisited.