On Obsession

'When we are young adults, not only are we looking for signposts but we are afraid of ourselves, frightened of where our tendencies may lead. Are we all just a tiny bit mad, and were my obsessions, like my grandfather's, always going to take on a mild and manageable aspect?'

In ON OBSESSION, Malcolm Knox contemplates love, Proust, soulmates in fiction, palindromic numbers and bloodlines, among other fixations, and wonders if the obsessive quest marks a retreat from life.

Malcolm Knox is the author of the internationally published novels Summerland, A Private Man, Jamaica, The Life and The Wonder Lover, as well as several acclaimed works of nonfiction. His journalism has won two Walkley Awards and a Human Rights Award, and he has been a runner-up in the Graham Perkin Award for Australian Journalist of the Year.