Jock Serong didn’t have the ideal schooling for a historical novelist. Yes, he studied the subject, but all he learned was about serfs, lords and European medieval history – and that put him right off. So much so that he rejected the Australian history course on offer in year 12. As he puts it now, “I got nothing out of it”. Things didn’t improve massively when he went to university. He majored in archaeology, hoping he might be able to study Australia. No such luck: “It was all Mesopotamian sherds”.
Fast-forward well into a new millennium and Serong has…
