Oh Matilda: Scene set for fun and games as Shankari Chandran adds to rollicking tale

Straight to Netflix — with ­Miranda Tapsell playing Matilda Meadows. That’s what writer Shankari Chandran said of where Oh Matilda, Who Bloody Killed Her? was going.

Author Shankari Chandran. Picture: AAP

Straight to Netflix — with ­Miranda Tapsell playing Matilda Meadows.

That’s what writer Shankari Chandran said, when asked where she thought The Australian’s smash hit serial novel, Oh Matilda, Who Bloody Killed Her?, was going.

The novel has been unfolding in real time since Christmas Eve.

Two dozen writers have so far contributed a chapter. The story started as a murder mystery, with a twist: all the characters have been asked to quarantine on an island during Covid.

It has evolved into a rollicking tale, now featuring famous actors from real life.

Chandran says she “agreed immediately” upon being asked to take part, “and then hung up abruptly before I could talk myself out of it.

“Given the calibre of the other contributors, I was really excited but mildly nauseous at the prospect of embarrassing myself on a national platform.”

She ended up loving it.

“I wanted to write something that was connected to and consistent with the previous contributions. But the potential to take the story in any direction I wanted was really liberating,” she said.

Chandran was asked to follow the mischievous Joe Hildebrand, who “set up my chapter with the hilarious arrival of Becky Cummerbund, the celebrity hound, who has the guests running for cover.

“I decided to focus on Becky and she gave me the opportunity to have some fun with the media industry.”

Chandran has previously published two novels: Song of the Sun God, which is historic fiction about Sri Lanka’s civil war; and The Barrier, a dystopia thriller set in a futuristic world destroyed by global religious wars and an ebola pandemic.

“I’m working on my next novel, a story about stories and how they keep memory and culture alive.”

It’s an issue about which she’s passionate: “One day in the future when aliens land on our planet and find it devoid of human beings because climate change was real, they’ll go to our public libraries and read the stories we wrote across many times, places, cultures and languages.

“They’ll know that books introduced us to the lives of others, widened our experiences and deepened our empathy. They’ll wonder why we didn’t write more. All of us should write more.”

In the meantime, you can read Chandran’s chapter on the Life and Times page today. If you haven’t been keeping up, don’t worry, you can go online and read Matilda from the start.

There are more chapters to come next week.

The Booker Prize winner, Thomas Keneally, is firing up for the finale.