Oh Matilda: Novel like no other we’re dying to read

What happens when you take 25 of Australia’s best writers and give them complete creative freedom? They start murdering people.

The Australian’s Caroline Overington, who has written the first chapter of progressive novel Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her? Picture: Daniel Pockett

What happens when you take 25 of Australia’s best writers, give them complete creative freedom and tell them to come up with holiday magic?

They start murdering people.

Fictional people, that is — in a summer novel like nothing you’ve read before.

The Australian’s beloved staff writers and the biggest names from the world of publishing are collaborating on a progressive novel called Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her?

Caroline Overington has started the story with Chapter One, online now as a pre-Christmas sneak peek, and on Monday the novel will begin appearing in our Summer Living pages, with a new chapter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Chapter Two, by star cricket journalist Gideon Haigh, is published on December 30 followed on January 1, Chapter Three by Trent Dalton, The Weekend Australian Magazine’s writer whose own novels are worldwide bestsellers.

Throughout summer we’ll keep the story coming with our stunning line-up of writers, including actor and novelist William McInnes, broadcasters Stan Grant and Charles Wooley, young Aboriginal author Marlee Silva, former homicide detective and memoirist Gary Jubelin, writers Siobhan McKenna, Greg Bearup, Dan Box and Peter Lalor, and more.

The final chapter, due in mid-February, is by Booker Prize-­winning novelist and historian Thomas Keneally.

The novel is still in progress, and as each writer completes a chapter, the story is passed on to the next with just three days to write 1000 or so words.

When Overington sat down to write, what flowed from her fingers was the germ of a whodunnit: an ageing but still dashing actor escapes lockdown to fly to a tropical island packed with glamorous young actors and the still-sizzling screen siren he has secretly desired for decades.

“So I wrote what I hoped was a fantastic opening chapter with some really lovely characters, and then other writers came in and started killing them off,” Overington said. “I was a bit shocked. But now I realise I’ve got no control over what happens from here. It’s up to the other writers, and they seem to be having a lot of fun.

“It’s got the potential to go completely off the rails. I just hope everyone starts reading and gets into the spirit, because who knows where it will go?

“I can’t wait to find out.”