In 2015, Robert Forster released his album Songs to Play. Cue Side 1, Track 3, ‘Songwriters on the Run’, a three-verse folk ballad in E minor about two musicians escaping jail, finding refuge with friends, making music, and falling in unrequited love. It’s a beautiful song with an unresolved narrative. It was the very vehicle that Forster wanted to explore next. He recently commented, ‘Basically, I wanted to free myself and write what I made up. Fiction. Imagination. Freedom to dream. I began to think of stories. I had a couple that didn’t fly, and then I remembered “Songwriters on the Run”. It flew.’

Over the course of nine years, Forster wrote this wonderful, quirky, amusing and insightful fable. As he says, it’s an ode to song itself, and a project for which he never lost enthusiasm, always returning to it in between his music and other projects. Paul Kelly has accurately described the book as ‘A comic odyssey, a crime thriller and a nuts-and-bolts account of making art. Not bad for one book!’

This is the story of a band: two friends, Mick and Drew, eternally locked together in that dreamland of songs and music, books and film, firmly believing in themselves, no matter what may befall them on the road. It’s 1991, they’re on tour in Queensland, singing and writing songs in small clubs. Then a steely, determined cop in Rockhampton happily busts our two heroes for marijuana possession and credit card fraud. All hell breaks loose!

What follows is a rollicking road trip of friendship, sacrifice, desperation and redemption, always with the hope of rescue. It’s a wonderful ride, filled with names and stories, real and imagined – guessing games galore! Forster writes well, with warmth, humour and insight into the process of writing. He has the knowledge that it takes time to create a song – and this most charming and unexpected delight of a novel! Congratulations, Mr Forster … see you on the road!