Truth

Bob Cornwell interviews Peter Temple about his new book Truth, which will appear in the US in May (but you can get The Broken Shore right now...):

BC: You talked about your occasional disagreement with your Australian publisher over your paring down of the prose style. Was the occasional compromise required?

PT: If you trust an editor then you must take the person's concerns seriously. There are very few trustable editors, as there are very few good mechanics. I am at the mercy of two excellent practitioners, Michael Heyward and Penny Hueston [at Text Publishing, Temple’s Australian publishers]. They would have made good jockeys: strong in the upper body, in the habit of walking the track before the race to get a feel for the going. When told by one or both of them that the reader would never make sense of something unless I was more explicit, I sometimes gave way.
................................Reluctantly. They turned out to be right most of the time.

(Link courtesy of Sarah.)