Welcome to the Quillett Podcast. I'm your host Jonathan Kay, a senior editor at Quillett.

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I'm your host for today, I'm going to begin Tom by reading a passage from your memoir, Hookline and

Sinner, an unexpected memoir which came out in August with Penguin Random House Australia.

Congratulations by the way.

And I've just written a review for that, of that for Quilette.

So I think that will probably be out by the time this podcast is out. So do go and take a look for that.

I'm going to begin by reading a very short chapter. It's just a couple of pages which I think gives a good illustration of the

I would say the most frequent tone in the book it's not the only tone that you strike in the book. It's not the only tone that you strike in the book, but it's one of the most

frequent ways in which you talk about things, and it's very typical also, I feel, of your general attitude to life. Anyway this chapter is called

coffee in the village. In the colder months the Manhattan windshield can be bitter, assailing your face with a crisp frost,

making its way through gaps and clothes and chilling skin. Strolling down McDougal Street in Greenwich Village, wearing only a polyester

t-shirt that cushioned the straps from my prosthetic arms, my friend and I took refuge

in a cafe. The Kitch and Bohemian interior proved to be more warming than it had appeared

from outside. A couple of tables down from us were a group of four or five middle-aged women, well-dressed with amiable expressions on their faces.

I noticed them glance at me more than once, but since I'd started sporting hooks for hands,

this was something I'd become accustomed to.

One of them went to the counter to pay their bill, and on her way back to the table brushed

past me, she let down and whispered into my ear,

...