Shelf Reflection is our series where we explore the bookshelves and reading habits of some of our favourite authors. In this latest instalment, Murray Middleton talks to us about Dostoyevsky, his favourite Melbourne-set reads and the inspirations behind his new novel, No Church in the Wild.

Images: Supplied.
No Church in the Wild sits in the tradition of the social novel. What compels you to interrogate contemporary Australian society?
The inequalities and injustices of Australian society have been staring me in the face all my life, having lived mostly in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. I went to an inner-city primary school, where kids who lived in picturesque Victorian terraces shared classrooms with kids from the local commission estate. We had deep-rooted prejudices against each other. I remember flat kids talking Pig Latin so they could insult me to my face, and getting strangled on the school oval by a kid whose family was later depicted in the Melbourne series of Underbelly (he was incited by my prejudice against his cricket technique). But the same kid and I also played on the same junior footy team on weekends and got along fine in that capacity.
No Church in the Wild is, in part, an interrogation of my own childhood. Even as a kid, I was aware that inequalities were in motion all around me. Years later, working at a school in Melbourne’s inner west, I saw similar inequalities playing out among the students. One of the four central characters in my book, Tyler, is an amalgam of my upbringing and what I observed working in the education system. He has some horrendous views. Racist, sexist, alt-right whacko nonsense. I was concerned about how Tyler might be received. Yet so far, readers seem to be really responding to him. One thing I feel I’ve done well is portray Tyler’s humanity. That’s what I suspect readers are latching onto.
What books were crucial to the writing of your book?
In the acknowledgements section of the book, I thanked Zadie Smith and George Saunders. I love listening to both of them speak on podcasts because they don’t bullshit you or posture in any way. NW by Zadie Smith was influential for me, in terms of how ambitious it was with form, hacking up the narrative between four central characters. My book is similar, albeit with more narrative overlay. Lincoln in the Bardo by Saunders is millions of times more ambitious than my book, form-wise, but is a fluid read, provided readers can get ‘in rhythm’ with it. Like Saunders, I tried to be really ambitious with form, while acutely considering the reading experience, particularly in terms of pacing.
Like Saunders, I tried to be really ambitious with form.
How Fiction Works by lit critic James Wood was important too. In it, he explained the concept of ‘free indirect style’, which is the form of roaming third-person narration I adopted in No Church in the Wild. By putting the concept in simple terms, Wood helped me exploit the benefits of what was otherwise an absurd (and time-consuming) mode of narration. So, aspiring writers, it does pay to read some theory, even if it seems less sexy than a janitor’s mop!
Which Melbourne-set books are your favourites?
I love Shadowboxing by Tony Birch. Reading his minimalist vignettes, I felt like I was inside the world of old Fitzroy. Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas explores the north, south, east and west of Melbourne, and generates real momentum with its present tense narration. Tsiolkas captured the pulse of a city in only one hundred and fifty-one pages, which is no mean feat.
A classmate at uni put me onto Andrew McGahan’s Praise, where the protagonist lives in a Brisbane boarding house (not a Melbourne setting, but influential). As I read it, I could feel the bathroom the protagonist shared with down-and-outers. Its tiles. The dank smell. The echo and spatter of male urine. I enjoyed how stripped back the prose was. No false lyricism. My book is really dialogue-heavy and is designed to flow from page to page, scene to scene, much like McGahan’s and Tsiolkas’ novels do.

Shadowboxing (2006), Loaded (1995) and Praise (1992).
What draws you to the novel as a form?
I’ve always found myself drawn more to short stories. No Church in the Wild is my version of a novel. The book includes excerpts of blog comments, rap lyrics and text exchanges that constantly cut across the action. Hopefully, there’s still enough of a traditional narrative structure to appeal to readers. The idea is to subvert the form so that my readers, much like the characters in the book, never quite feel settled in the stifling locale of Flemington. ‘Unflinching realism’ is what I pitched to the publisher.
My book is designed to flow from page to page, scene to scene, much like McGahan’s and Tsiolkas’ novels do.
This may surprise people, given the book’s breakneck tempo, but I’m neurotically structured in the way that I plan a novel. I have notebooks full of handwritten instructions to myself about character arcs, backstories and the information that I need to reveal in each scene/chapter/act. It helps me adhere to the form of a novel just enough before deviating from it so that my prose doesn’t feel obligatory. In the book, I tried to uphold one of Kurt Vonnegut’s golden rules of writing: every sentence must either reveal character or advance the plot. I suspect Karl Ove Knausgaard may not be in favour of this rule.
What are you currently reading?
I just finished reading the first instalment of Helen Garner’s diaries. Some beautiful, rhythmic sentences from Garner. I constantly found myself wondering whether she found it cleansing or traumatic to revisit the slow demise of her second marriage? Either way, it captured me. I have a 19-month-old bub, so I didn’t read anything—aside from Goodnight Moon or shithouse books about bear hunts—during my first year of parenthood. Since returning to ‘the game’, I’ve been concentrating on Australian books. Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto and Childhood by Shannon Burns were two books I savoured every page of. Shannon Burns has lived through a lot of what is portrayed in my book, albeit in the suburbs of Adelaide. How he found a way through—to conceptualise and write something so articulate—is a miracle.
What kind of reader are you?
I am a painstakingly slow reader. My partner Jess reads—and absorbs—books at three or four times the speed that I do. It’s terrifying. I can only ever read one book at a time. No mistresses or flirtations on the side. Same as I can only work on one piece of writing at a time.
Stubbornly, I try to finish reading every book I start. The only book I can recall not finishing is Naked Lunch, because there was no plot to attach my brain to, and I was beginning to feel like Burroughs was a self-indulgent arsehole (this was prior to me learning that he shot his wife). I know some people love Naked Lunch. And that’s fine. They’re arseholes, too.
I can only ever read one book at a time. No mistresses or flirtations on the side.
I never re-read books, partially because there’s too much out there still to read but also because I can no longer suspend my disbelief, so to speak. The tension of not knowing how an exceptionally well-written book will end is one of life’s true joys. Conversely, the second viewing of a great film or series—such as The Wire or Sopranos—tends to be more enjoyable, as you can appreciate the peripheral qualities: scripting, acting, framing, pacing, etc.
What does your book collection look like?
My book collection has gathered a lot of dust in the past year and a half. I alphabetise my library and squash most of my books onto Temple & Webster shelves that I swore at seven hundred and thirty-six times while assembling. I’ve stopped buying books the past five years. My parents’ home is full of books, which is a great way of soundproofing, but I’m mindful of inflicting such a gargantuan clean-up on my son someday. I own predominantly fiction books. From my late teens, I spent around a decade motoring through the classics: Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Orwell. There’ve been some solid tears through Russian and Japanese literature over the journey and, as I said, more recently I’ve become immersed in the literature of our own backyard.
The first book I can recall ordering from a bookshop was Gates of Eden, a collection of short stories by Ethan Coen of Coen Brothers fame. A bloke in my scriptwriting tutorial at uni swore by it. We used to pass Coen Brothers scripts around in the back row, as if we were bootleggers. Gates of Eden was wild stuff. It helped me realise that a short story—and prose—can be anything you want it to be, provided it hacks you right in the heart with a really big axe.

Right: Murray Middleton with his child. Left: Murray’s bookshelf Images: Supplied.
What books are you constantly recommending other people read?
Most people who seek book recommendations from me aren’t regular readers, so I tend to recommend books that are eminently readable. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami has been a winner with friends in their thirties, even the non ‘sportsball’ types. The Boat by Nam Le packs a huge punch—or seven huge punches. Last year I put my partner onto The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood, which she demolished with a frown on her face. The Road by Cormac McCarthy has grown increasingly haunting/plausible in the years since its publication. Also, The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. I could go on. Just not Moby-Dick. Christ! It may be the best—and worst—book of all time, rolled into one tattered paperback. It’s a feat of stubbornness and singleness that I managed to conquer Captain Ahab’s depravity and all 218,617 words. Chapter-long tangents on whale portraits, interrupting an otherwise riveting story. Didn’t they have editors back in 1851? Get out of here, Melville!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007), The Boat (2008) and The Natural Way of Things (2015).
No Church in the Wild features a chorus of different voices. Where did the inspiration come from?
I really wanted to portray a diverse array of voices. The four main characters would all, most likely, vote for different political parties. If they would vote, that is. I did months of research prior to starting my first draft of the book, interviewing a range of former students of mine and teachers, as well as policemen, dealers and users. Transcribing interviews is well worthwhile, even though it feels time-consuming. So many nuggets arose from my interviews. I loved the expression: ‘split me all the way back to the white meat’, which a former dealer in the commission flats used in an interview to describe being sucker-punched. That made its way into my novel. I’d never say, or write, anything like that. That dealer, in particular, sculpted my protagonists’ vocabularies, which hopefully helped establish the verisimilitude of the world that they inhabited.
Who are your favourite protagonists in literature?

In terms of my favourite protagonists, Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is probably a boring answer. Apologies. I naively thought that I could take a life and live with it until I read that book, and realised that my inner negotiations would most likely be similar to Raskolnikov’s in the aftermath. Meursault in Camus’ The Outsider subjected himself to no such negotiations but was equally as interesting on the page. The first half of The Outsider in Algiers is the clearest book setting that my mind’s eye has ever seen. Within it, the protagonist’s actions felt almost permissible.
What’s next for you?
I’m obviously hoping to gain preselection for the United Australia Party at the next federal election, because right-wing populists are so supportive of the arts. If that falls through, my next book of short stories is due for release with Pan Macmillan in 2025. Each story is about an artist hitting a point of internal crisis. Actors, painters, photographers, etc. The collection is a dark comedy. I wrote it in lockdown during Covid, the only time in my life that I’ve effectively been paid a weekly income to write. It was a rare privilege, born of worldwide suffering.
No Church in the Wild is out now via Pan Macmillan Australia.