'The Rarest Thing': A Novel about a Possum?
‘To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all.’
Oscar Wilde
A novel about a possum? Well, this is a very special one – a mountain pygmy possum. Scientists call it burramys parvus, which translates as ‘little rock mouse’. Until 1966 everyone thought it was extinct. The only evidence that it had ever existed were some fossilised bones which were so tiny it’s a wonder they were ever found in the first place!
My new novel is inspired by a true event – the discovery of a live burramys in a ski lodge at Mount Hotham exactly fifty years ago. After the little marsupial was transported to Melbourne and its identity confirmed, the newspapers dubbed it ‘the world’s rarest creature’, while scientists came from far and wide to see the celebrity possum. And that’s what gave me the title and the starting point for my book.
Other than those facts, the story is totally a figment of my imagination and everyone in it is fictitious. Except, of course, for the possum. In my earliest draft I called it ‘Tiny’ because I didn't know whether it was male or female.
Then I discovered a charming book by June Epstein published in 1981 called ‘The Friends of the Burramys’. That allowed me to correct the obvious mistakes, and Tiny became George.
An early reader has called my novel ‘The African Queen meets the Victorian High Country’ and although there’s no boat in my tale, and you won’t spot a single possum in the film, I’m rather chuffed with the comparison. 'The African Queen' is one of my all-time favourite films. In fact, I named my leading lady after Katharine Hepburn, its female star.
But back to the possum. Its rarity and the fact that it ‘woke from the dead’ gave me the perfect metaphor for my book. Alive, not extinct.
The possum isn’t the only vulnerable character in my book. My heroine, the aforesaid Katharine, is a thirty-year-old palaeontologist, who’s more comfortable with fossils than live human beings, especially men – an exotic species of which she has little experience, apart from a predatory professor who has made her life hell, and a dashing wildlife photographer who seems too good to be true.
'The Rarest Thing' will be available on 1 November 2016 direct from www.lomandrapress.com.au
Deborah O’Brien
September 2016
Most people exist, that is all.’
Oscar Wilde
A novel about a possum? Well, this is a very special one – a mountain pygmy possum. Scientists call it burramys parvus, which translates as ‘little rock mouse’. Until 1966 everyone thought it was extinct. The only evidence that it had ever existed were some fossilised bones which were so tiny it’s a wonder they were ever found in the first place!
My new novel is inspired by a true event – the discovery of a live burramys in a ski lodge at Mount Hotham exactly fifty years ago. After the little marsupial was transported to Melbourne and its identity confirmed, the newspapers dubbed it ‘the world’s rarest creature’, while scientists came from far and wide to see the celebrity possum. And that’s what gave me the title and the starting point for my book.
Other than those facts, the story is totally a figment of my imagination and everyone in it is fictitious. Except, of course, for the possum. In my earliest draft I called it ‘Tiny’ because I didn't know whether it was male or female.
Then I discovered a charming book by June Epstein published in 1981 called ‘The Friends of the Burramys’. That allowed me to correct the obvious mistakes, and Tiny became George.
An early reader has called my novel ‘The African Queen meets the Victorian High Country’ and although there’s no boat in my tale, and you won’t spot a single possum in the film, I’m rather chuffed with the comparison. 'The African Queen' is one of my all-time favourite films. In fact, I named my leading lady after Katharine Hepburn, its female star.
But back to the possum. Its rarity and the fact that it ‘woke from the dead’ gave me the perfect metaphor for my book. Alive, not extinct.
The possum isn’t the only vulnerable character in my book. My heroine, the aforesaid Katharine, is a thirty-year-old palaeontologist, who’s more comfortable with fossils than live human beings, especially men – an exotic species of which she has little experience, apart from a predatory professor who has made her life hell, and a dashing wildlife photographer who seems too good to be true.
'The Rarest Thing' will be available on 1 November 2016 direct from www.lomandrapress.com.au
Deborah O’Brien
September 2016
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The Rarest Thing intrigues, entertains and invites us to ponder where our own life journey may take us. What a pleasure to dive into this latest book from internationally acclaimed author Deborah O’Brien and join Dr Katharine Wynter and Scott King as they quest for hidden beauties, rich and rare.
Thank you Deborah for another riveting read!