Sue McCauley and Barbara Else released novels that went viral before it was even a thing. McCauley’s 1982 novel Other Halves, the story of a love affair between a white middle-class woman and a 16-year old Māori street kid, was an instant bestseller. A decade later, everybody was gleefully reading Barbara Else’s Warrior Queen, about a woman taking revenge on her cheating husband. Both novels were popular not only because they challenged a few social mores of the time, but also because they reeked of personal truth. Now, decades later, are the two novelists ready to reveal how much was drawn from their own lives? Elisabeth Easther is all set to get it out of them.