Tegan Bennett Daylight's young adult novel How to Survive 1985 draws on memories 'burned into' her brain

Australia Broadcast Center

6 days ago

What would you do if you came out of a cinema and found you had somehow gone back in time to the 1980s?
That's the predicament facing Shannon, the teenage protagonist of Tegan Bennett Daylight's new young adult (YA) novel, How to Survive 1985.
The book follows Shannon as she tries to find her friends — who have also travelled back in time — and a way to return to her usual life.
While it would be easy for a time travel tale to embrace the cliches of the era and have its characters get around in acid wash jeans while listening to power ballads on their walkmans, Daylight's book has fun with its setting — but takes a different path.
How to Survive 1985 uses its time shift for social commentary, as Shannon reflects on how society has changed in the past four decades.
Seeing a less inclusive Australia leads her to celebrate progress on gender equality, LGBTQIA+ rights and environmental issues.
She also becomes thankful for the modern medical advances that help people live longer, happier lives.
Daylight says she has seen teenagers become more compassionate and inclusive, and wanted to celebrate this change.
"I come across Gen-Xers who seem to think that all the radical work stopped with us, as though we'd done everything that we needed to do, or that Gen Z are a hopeless bunch. I just don't believe that at all.
"I've been teaching for 30 years, and I've got kids, and I have found that young people are lost in some ways, but they just get kinder and kinder."
While Daylight, who turned 16 in 1985, consulted with some Gen X friends about their memories of the 1980s, she didn't have to do too much research to set the scene.
"That part of your life gets burned into your brain," she explains of being a teenager.
"Anything that happens then stays [with you], so it was very, very easy to remember my attitudes, clothing, the music I was listening to and what the world looked like."
She can also easily recall the connection she felt with her family as a teenager.
In the book, Shannon hangs out with her teenage mother and reflects on her hopes and dreams for the future.
Daylight says the storyline was close to home for her.
"I asked my oldest child what they would do if they went back to 1985, and they said, 'I'd look for you.' That was a lovely thing to hear.
"I also realised as I was writing that it was likely to be something I'd do as well."
One key difference with setting a book in the 1980s is that the characters can't communicate with mobile phones or the internet.
"Taking phones out [of the story] is a great thought experiment to see what young people who are used to phones might do," Daylight says.
"It's also a great plot point, because they know they want to find each other but don't know how. So that gives them this lovely adventure to go on."
Daylight, who published her first adult novel, Bombora, in 1996, never planned to write YA fiction.
"I just had this idea of six teenagers trapped in Penrith Plaza," she says of her previous book, Royals. (How to Survive 1985 features the same characters, but can be read as a standalone book.)
"But once I'd written that, I was like, 'OK, cool, I've finished my YA.'
"A few people said to me, 'Are you going to write a sequel?' and I said 'No way.' But then this other idea [for How to Survive 1985] just turned up and kept hanging out with me."
Now, she's even working on a third book in the series that she never intended to write.
Daylight says the main difference she has found between writing literary fiction and YA is promoting the work.
"YA is a different space; it's much less heightened and poised than literary, where you're really curating yourself," she says.
She has found that while there is less focus on YA in the media and at writer's festivals, it has a vibrant and enthusiastic readership.
"Even though you might be quite visible as a literary writer and less so as a YA writer, what happens is the books actually sell.
"They call it young adult, but [the character ages] start at about 10 and go to 25, so it's quite a broad market, and it's been super interesting."
And Daylight is delighted that her time travel fiction is striking a chord.
How to Survive 1985 (Simon & Schuster) is out now.