Matt Okine: ‘I wish we were taught as boys that it’s OK to be hurt’

The former Triple J presenter’s mother died when he was 12. He doesn’t talk much about it publicly, but his new novel ‘is a way to remember her’

Matt Okine’s mother died on a Good Friday. On the way home from the hospital in the car with family friends he cracked a joke. It’s all good, because in two days she’s going to come back, like Jesus. No one laughed. Twelve-year-old Okine realised: “People are going to start treating you differently now.” And they did.

That same scene appears in the comedian’s new novel, Being Black ’N Chicken & Chips, about 12-year-old Mike whose mother dies just weeks after a cancer diagnosis. It’s not a memoir, quite, and it’s not all sad. There are one-liners and awkward comedic pubescent scenes that one might expect of Okine the comedian and sitcom writer.

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