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Hollie spoke to Ineke Meredith about her memoir, On Call.
Author Photo: Rachel Calvo
What does a typical day look like for you?
Well, I don't quite have a typical day at the moment. I am in this period of transition with my life in Paris now. A few years ago, I launched our canine dermocosmetic brand in New Zealand and now we are launching in France. I have a new business partner here in Paris, and we are just about to take on a new member of the team. Most days we are working together.
But the typical day starts with coffee and a croissant. We live next to the Eiffel Tower so I try to run in the morning along the river and say hi to her :) I never cease to be absolutely amazed by her beauty. Then I have a day packed full of business meetings or I am writing something! I just finished writing an article for the veterinarians in the UK about the importance of dermocosmetics in dogs. Later this month, we are working with the French veterinary dermatologists in Corsica, so it's really project after project right now. If I did not run in the morning, I absolutely have to run in the evening. My running route is along the river all the way to the Louvre and back. I try to have a little break from the desk before I jump back on to time with NZ waking. At the moment, I am on meetings with NZ from 930pm - 2am Paris time. I am involved with some changes happening in Breast Screen Aotearoa so the meetings are a mix between Fur Love and that ;)
What made you decide to write ‘On Call’?
I never really 'decided' to write On Call. I was writing about patients and their stories which are always far greater than what we appreciate when we see someone in their illness. I was a little hit by this idea that we manage disease, and in particular for trauma or cancer, this journey turns the whole family upside down. I just wanted to write about them so that I would remember them as a person and not just the disease. I initially thought that I would like to write something to the New England Journal of Medicine which is one of the greatest medical journals but they did not want my stories, so when I had over 30,000 words I decided that maybe a publisher would want it.
The importance of your relationship with your mother shines through in your memoir, what was the greatest lesson she taught you?
I have a huge work ethic, I don't stop and this was through watching her. I don't know anyone who worked as much as she did. But if there is one 'lesson' that shines through for me, it is not to look into your neighbour's bowl. I do my best! Anyway, I think I am too busy to worry about what others have and what I don't have...and to be honest, if there is one thing medicine teaches you, it's that every day is a gift.
What is your strongest memory of medical school?
For some reason, cadaver labs. I suppose because it is so strongly visual, that it pervades my memories of med school. I can remember the hallway outside where we would leave our bags. The smell and the harsh white light in the labs. The cadavers on the table and our small groups huddled around a cadaver...I remember even the cold of the cadaver through my gloved hand and the greasiness... I imagine this memory is quite pervasive for most of us. My husband is also a surgeon and one day he bought a leg of "Pata negra" which is a cured leg of pork. At the time, it was a good idea...we loved to eat it in restaurants. Why not have it at home with friends? After a couple of months of this big leg of meat sitting on our kitchen bench, we started to feel unwell even walking into the kitchen. It really pulled on the memory of cadaver labs for both of us!
What’s one takeaway you hope people will have from your book?
It's been a pretty amazing month because I never realised how widely the book would resonate for all people from all walks of life. When I was writing the book, I had different thoughts at different moments: First, I hoped it would become this 'book of truth' for people entering medicine. For so long, we were always told to read 'House of God' but I was disappointed by how negative it was about patients, and frankly, our patients are awesome and they go through a lot. I hoped that it would illustrate something closer to the truth for young people who wanted to become surgeons at this moment in time. Second, I hoped that patients and patients' families would read it, and understand how much they impacted us. No matter how many times we have given bad news, it is always hard and heartbreaking even for us. And third, I hoped that the families of my colleagues would read it, and understand what it is like because I don't think there is any way you can understand what it is like unless you live it. I have had amazing messages from people who have read the book and so many messages have made me cry. People have told me they cried and they laughed. Spouses of colleagues have said that they have insight into what we go through at work. But the most frequent message I have received is that the book made them realise that life is fragile and can be taken at any moment.
What author or book is a recent discovery for you?
I am terrible. I have 3 books on the go right now. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Nos Frères Inattendus by Amin Maalouf (I always try to read something in French to continue to improve) and I am finishing Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. One of my favourite books and 'recent' discovery has to be The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom. I thought it was extraordinary and I subsequently read his other book When Nietzsche Wept which was also very good.
What is your favourite snack to enjoy while writing?
I can't snack while writing because if there is something in front of me, I will inhale it. So I am more of a mint tea while writing kinda girl.
Set on the coast of Northern Ireland, Maguire’s debut novel Night Swimmers is another to add to the pile of great Irish writing. Local woman Grace, is known as a bit a grouch, who lives an independent life. However, after a meeting between two new village arrivals - Evan and his young son Luca - the three are drawn together, which may bring healing for them all.
The warmth of community and connections between strangers are highlighted in this novel about loneliness, with both humour and profound sorrow.
Listen to Jenna chat with Kathryn below.
Miranda July’s work crosses many mediums, however Jenna has been anticipating her first novel since 2013’s The First Bad Man.
Our unnamed protagonist is an artist and mother and she is ready for freedom. Whilst experiencing symptoms of perimenopause as well as flashbacks to the traumatic birth of her child, she sets on a cross country road trip, which soon takes a detour. Boundaries and ethics are no barrier to her as she attempts to balance her desires and her family life.
The connection between strangers is what intrinsically links all of July’s work and All Fours is no exception. A laugh out loud, bonkers and provocative ride, it’s wonderful to be back in the hands of July’s storytelling.
Listen to Jenna, Rachel & Stella chat below!
Time Out spoke to writer Saraid de Silva about her debut novel, Amma.
People may not know this, but we had you work for a summer at Time Out. What was working at a bookstore like for you?
Honestly terrible for my wallet, I bought so, so, so many books. I think I became a bit of a magpie about it. People would come in chatting about a book and I'd eavesdrop and get fomo and then I'd have to buy it. But I loved working at Time Out specifically because all my colleagues were so lovely. And it was also just really great to get to talk about books with different people.
What is something new you learned while researching Amma?
I learned about rojak. I was talking to my Aunty Collette about Singapore and she told me about rojak, which is a dish found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and it has like, tofu and veggies as well as some fruit in it, and it's all tossed in this sauce with peanuts on top I think. It just sounds so good and I really want to eat it.
What would your Gran think about Amma?
I would love to know. Mitzi, my Gran, would certainly have a lot to say about it. But I'm not sure what particular things she would like or dislike about the book. If she truly liked it she might not even tell me, but she would certainly be telling other people.
What’s your favourite thing about Invercargill?
I've only been there once so I'm not sure I could say. The hotel we stayed in was quite weird and creepy and I am partial to a somewhat haunted old building.
What author or books have you discovered recently?
Oh favourite question. I started reading Kitten by Olive Nuttall in Time Out, bought it, but then had to read other books for work reasons so it's sitting by my bed waiting for me. But two pages in and I was hooked. I'm looking forward to reading A Person is a Prayer by Ammar Kalia and Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. Who I've discovered recently though? I'm reading Homie by Danez Smith. I've read his work online before but holding his actual book feels so different. I know I will read everything he's written now because he's so, so good.
We don’t want to pressure you but are you working on any new writing?
I'm trying to write my second book but I am finding it almost impossible to do so whilst having a full time job!
What is your favourite snack to enjoy while writing?
Love this question and I take it very seriously because I eat a lot when I'm writing. Probably as procrastination, but also as reward and motivation. I like eating natto (away from desk) and cut up fruit or grapes (at desk).
Today on 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Suri reviewed Percival Everett’s James.
An amazing endeavour of a novel, where Everett gives Jim, the peripheral sidekick in Huckleberry Finn, a full voice.
With notes of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, James is a clever exploration of language, plunging the reader into the American South, pre-civil war.
Abby, one of our two Ockham Fiction Champions, popped into the bFM studio to chat the fiction shortlist.
Listen below and you can watch the Ockhams this Wednesday 15th March here.
You can also come in person! Purchase tickets here.
Lioness is a hypnotic read that steadily unravels wealth and power in Aotearoa through the unravelling life of it’s main character and her collision course with the woman she wishes she could be. It’s fiery, entrancing, and easily devourable. It was great to get to chat to Emily about the book:
You’ve previously won a New Zealand Book Award for Novel About My Wife in 2009. What do you think is the biggest thing that’s changed about your writing/you as a writer since then?
It’s hard to say – with each book or script I want to do something I haven’t done before, so I tend to think from project to project rather than look at my own writing over time. One thing I love about writing is that you have to bring your whole self to it. It doesn’t get easier but I’m more conscious of enjoying the golden moments.
Lioness is your first novel in a while, but you’ve been busy in the theatre and film worlds! How does your approach to writing a novel differ from a screen or stage work?
One difference is in how I create the first draft. With a novel I’m more likely to write into the unknown, finding it piece by piece and building the structure as I go, and with drama work I’m usually thinking through the architecture first, then honing in on the details.
I love the characters of Lioness and how they fit together - they’re so messy and real but simultaneously larger-than-life. Were there any people (real or fictional!) or encounters that inspired them?
Thank you! Not really – they emerged from the world of the book. Although there is a moment that Therese recalls, being at a party and having a man guess her age, that’s based on a real life encounter I had, and which was quite a propellant.
I’ve seen Lioness compared to Succession quite often which makes a lot of sense to me. Why do you think people love stories about the wealthy? Was there something that drew you into writing about wealth and class?
There’s the fascination we have with different systems, the feeling of having your nose pressed up to the glass. What would it be like to be inside that? Money is a huge driver of story: what we do to get it, what we do to keep it, what having it or not having it does to us. And the illusion of New Zealand as a relatively class-free nation has been blown up in recent decades. I wanted to foreground class, both its visible and invisible aspects, because I think we should be more honest about the way it works in order to challenge it as a force.
If you were a bookseller, how would you sell your book to a potential reader?
‘One of the books in this store contains a golden ticket worth 2 million dollars. It’s probably in a copy of Lioness, but you won’t know until you buy it.’
Any ideas for your next book yet?
I’m at the early stages of something. It’s centred around a marriage again – at the moment the character that’s drawing my attention is the husband.
Tell us a bit about your upcoming sessions/masterclass at the Auckland Writers Festival!
Voice is the most crucial part of writing to me – it defines and propels the work, it’s intimately tied with story, and it’s what I read for. This isn’t a generalised session on ‘how to find your literary voice’ because each project generates and demands its own. So it will be ‘how to find the right voice for what you’re writing at the moment.’ We’ll be doing fun exercises and looking at the effects different voices generate. I want people to leave feeling they know what feels right for their work, and that they have some new approaches.
Give us a quick review of the other finalists on the shortlist, if you’ve read them!
I have read them and I’ve been blown away by the mastery, range and ambition across all of them – as I was by the longlisted books I’ve read too – such a hard task for the judges, and so much juicy reading for booklovers!
Birnam Wood took the book world by storm in early 2023, and sat at the top of Time Out’s bestsellers list for many months of that year. It’s no surprise then to see it on the Ockhams fiction shortlist. I loved getting to talk to Eleanor about this gripping, astute, and richly-layered thriller:
You’ve previously won a New Zealand Book Award in 2014 for The Luminaries. What do you think is the biggest thing that’s changed about your writing/you as a writer since then?
I believe much more passionately than I ever did that fiction is a moral art form; that even at its most entertaining—and maybe especially at its most entertaining—fiction is the best tool we have for exploring intentions and actions, causes and effects. I’ve always loved plot, but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve been able to articulate why I think it’s so important.
All three of your books are so distinct from one another - did you ever worry about what readers’ opinions of Birnam Wood would be, seeing as it’s so different from The Luminaries?
Not really. I did resolve not to write another 800-pager—I figured people might not forgive me for that—but I think that every book has to justify its existence on its own terms.
What was it like writing a novel set in such a particular political time, when that landscape is constantly changing? For example, if you started Birnam Wood now, when the year since its release has seen such a dramatic shift in NZ politics, do you think the novel would turn out differently?
It’s hard to say, because I never wanted the book to be partisan in its politics. I might have made the NZ government more complicit in Lemoine’s activities, perhaps, but topicality is a dangerous thing to aim for in fiction: nothing dates faster. Birnam Wood is set in 2017, when I was around Tony’s age, and not much older than Mira. I felt I understood them in a generational sense. I shared the hope that had been kindled by the election of Barack Obama, by Occupy Wall Street, by the Arab Spring; I shared their growing disillusionment with social media, and all the other disappointments they’d suffered as that decade wore on. (I still cringe to remember that the OED word of the year for 2017 was ‘youthquake’.) So in a sense the book was always written as a period piece. But of course my own personal circumstances are always changing, as everybody's are. If I were to start writing Birnam Wood now, it would be as a 38-year-old and as a mother, which inevitably would have a bearing on the work.
I think I’ve just talked myself full circle: my new answer is that yes, the novel would absolutely turn out differently if I wrote it now. It would be different in every single way.
Do you feel any obligation, as such an internationally successful author, to continue to write New Zealand stories? Do you think you’ll ever write about elsewhere?
I have lived in the UK continuously since 2019, and I think it would be very hard for me to write a novel set in present-day New Zealand because my experience of the pandemic was so different to how it was experienced back home. That has more to do with the need for the work to be convincing than it has to do with any sense of obligation, though. I’m also a Canadian author—I was born in Canada—and I actually feel much more of an obligation to address that in my fiction somehow. Someday!
Obviously the core of the novel is Macbethian, but you’ve also mentioned being inspired by Mary Shelley and by working on the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. How important do you think it is for other writers like yourself (and the general public) to be reading classics today?
More than important. Vital. We can’t understand our own age properly without a sense of how things have changed. I can never take a writer seriously if I find out that they refuse to read the giants of the past. But equally, I can’t trust writers who scorn to read contemporary fiction. They’re just as impoverished, and maybe more so, because they risk losing sight of their readers, who can only exist in the present, and nowhere else.
The flip side of this is the crime/thriller influences of the book. Was it a balancing act of classical, literary, and genre fiction elements, or did that relationship come naturally?
Emma has famously been called the world’s first detective novel, and in a way, Macbeth is our first example of an ingenious plot twist: really a double twist, first the fact that Birnam Wood is made to move, and then, the fact that Macduff was not technically born of woman. So they both gave me a lot to work with on a genre level while also being formally, and literarily, exemplary.
You’ve said the first seeds of Birnam Wood were sown (excuse the pun) during a writer’s residency in Amsterdam above a left-wing bookstore filled with protest books. Were there any specific books that helped shape your characters/story?
David Graeber’s The Democracy Project, Astra Taylor’s The People’s Platform, Eliot Higgins’ We Are Bellingcat, and Katrin Marcal’s Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? all had a huge influence on Birnam Wood. But for me inspiration is as often negative as it is positive. Mark Bray’s Antifa, for example, was influential precisely because of how much it annoyed me.
If you were a bookseller, how would you sell your book to a potential reader?
It was always my hope that Birnam Wood would be the kind of book that you’d have to stay up late to finish. So maybe I'd say that. But I find this question slightly queasy-making, because I don’t really think it’s the author’s place to say whether their book achieves its ambitions or not.
Do you have anything you can share with us about your next book, Doubtful Sound, yet?
I can give you the first sentence: Eight months after my divorce from Dominic, I saw a woman he had led me to believe was dead.
Give us a quick review of the other finalists on the shortlist, if you’ve read them!
Pip Adam’s game-breaking, ground-changing Audition will break your heart and rearrange your brain, but not in that order. Reading Emily Perkins’ subtle and provocative Lioness, I kept thinking of a line from Diana Athill’s memoir, how the best observers of human nature are ‘lit by humour but above malice’; there’s so much warmth to the humour in this book, which is never malicious, even at its most satirical. The blunt, vernacular style of Stephen Daisley’s A Better Place kept astounding me, page after page, with its emotional scope; I had to keep reminding myself that this was a work of the imagination and not an eyewitness account. And the foot! Oh my God, the foot.
Short version: all three are terrific books!
Audition is a dizzying, genre-defying work of social realism, which the judges of this year’s Ockhams aptly described as ‘mind-melting’. Pip’s masterful use of language and structure will have these characters filling your brain long after you’ve finished reading. It’s a book best read blind, but one that is deeply affecting and truly unforgettable - my top book of 2023! It was a privilege to talk to Pip about her work:
You’ve previously won the Acorn in 2018 for The New Animals. What do you think is the biggest thing that’s changed about your writing/you as a writer since then?
I’ve been thinking about this a bit because a lot of people have been asking this question - which I think is interesting in itself. I’m always writing about the moment I’m writing in - if that makes sense. Nothing shapes my work more than the things I’m living through. I’ve often said I write to try and understand things that confuse me. The New Animals was written pre-Trump but also at the tail-end of the John Key government. The concerns that shaped that book were around inequity and work. At the time I was feeling incredibly bruised by the political climate. I was witnessing this lack of care - for people, for the planet - and The New Animals is largely about trying to work out why power might demand this attitude to protect itself. I think this is what I love about trying to write the moment you’re in because I had no idea at that time how much worse it was going to get.
Looking back on it, The New Animals contains this completely misjudged hope: hard work can be its own reward, community can protect us from power structures, the innocent individual will not be punished for the actions of those who wield power over them and, I think, most upsettingly, the powerless will find a way to survive the climate collapse. When I think about these things, they’re some of the stories we’re told to keep us in check. I think when I wrote The New Animals I was imagining a different future to the one I find myself in now and the one I wrote Audition in.
Probably, the most important thing that happened for my writing and me was not winning the Acorn Prize in 2021. As the room’s energy shifted toward the winning book that night I experienced this overwhelming sense of the freedom of being unseen. It’s hard to describe but when I next sat down to write I felt that wonderful, wonderful feeling that no one was waiting for the next book. That I had nothing to ‘live-up to’, that I could write something with no one looking. I come from a family where we know how to pass and there had been a degree of embodying this politeness, because I imagined people were watching, that I also felt kind of fell off me. I think this is why Nothing to See is such an autobiographical book. I felt while people were watching I could only speak for my own experience, that somehow people would be upset at me if I spoke to a bigger picture. Ironically, what I experienced after The New Animals won was the answer to my question around power protecting itself. I experienced a degree of privilege and wealth and this led to a degree of fear over losing both those things. It was not like this with Audition. The book was written during a year where I really needed to decide where I stood politically. The lack of care I’d seen in the Key government in many ways was still there during the last Labour government because that is the nature of our capitalist colonial government and to watch it being executed under a rhetoric and culture of ‘kindness’ woke me up in all new ways. I needed to educate myself about my position as Tauiwi Pākeha in the violence wrought by colonisation, about my complicity in the justice system, and exactly how I could be an accomplice in the protection and advancement of Trans rights.
So what I see that has changed about my writing in between The New Animals and Audition is a greater pressure on language and narrative to express what I’m struggling with politically and personally. An attempt maybe to work out the things about me in the world that confuse me.
My predominant thought while reading Audition was that it was such a singular concept, something I never could have imagined being a book until it was. How did this story/these characters come to you?
One of my favourite things about writing fiction is that, for me, the only way to find out the story and to meet the characters is by writing the story and the characters. There’s this Wallace Stevens’ poem called Of Modern Poetry and it has this line:
It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage
I don’t know much about poetry, and every time I read this one I am confused again. But that line, in my interpretation, describes exactly what it is to write a novel. I have to construct the stage for the novel to be on. In this way I think all novels are something we could never imagine. So, yeah, this is how the story and characters came to me. I would show up at my computer or at my notebook having no idea what I was going to write and start writing. I say this a lot and it is probably boring but the first draft is always a process of me telling myself the story. I reckon my most important job at this stage is two-fold. The first part is the turning up. Turning up especially when I am not feeling it - because at the stage when things are ‘coming to me’ I never feel it. The second part is to fuel up. I need experiences and information to bring to this process. So during this time, any time away from writing is trying to live as consciously as possible. Being open to chance encounters - with books, with news articles, with people. So it’s this strange time of being absolutely and wildly in the world and taking time away from it to write. This I think is where the story came to me. For example, one of the major influences was James E.K. Parker’s work on sound’s place in war and torture. I would have never found it if I hadn’t been working on a project at City Gallery around an exhibition Parker was co-curating. The job was part of a few I was doing at the time to make money, which is a massive part of living and one I need to be part of while I’m writing.
In an effort to describe the reading experience of Audition, the best I can come up with is a cluttered stream of consciousness, like synapses firing over a page. At what point in writing did that language come to you? Did you know from the outset that that’s what you wanted the writing style to be?
I think ‘style’ (or in my case perhaps lack of style - which is a stylistic choice in itself) comes quite late. I’m not a person who ‘hears’ voice. I can feel when it’s wrong so I’m usually writing away from something rather than toward it. There’s one choice I do remember making and it’s to have the first section all in direct speech. The book is really interested in ideas around gender and I am really interested in ways of subverting binary gender in language. The book is also, of course, interested in sound and I suddenly realised one day that direct speech is a way to depress the use of pronouns and also it’s a noisy construction. So it was an interesting way to explore both ideas at once. I’ve always been interested also in how direct speech has this effect, for me anyway, of escaping the narrative voice. In my head, direct speech is like a punch-through to a narrative. It sounds different in my head and I love that.
You’ve said that the spaceship Audition is specifically based on Saydnaya Prison in Damascus, Syria. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose this as a model for Audition, and what the research process was like?
I wrote an essay for The Arts Desk about sound in prisons. The idea of sound and prison are probably the things that have been in the novel from the start - they might be the foundational ideas of the work. In that essay I said this about Saydnaya;
‘The exhibition that James Parker was curating included the work of Lawrence Abu Hamdan which documented his collection of "ear witness" testimony from released and escaped inmates of Saydnaya – a prison inaccessible to independent observers and monitors. One of the things that became very clear through Abu Hamdan’s work, was the extent to which Saydnaya was designed to create sonic torture. A combination of panacoustic surveillance and amplifying architecture meant it was an extreme example of what Abu Hamden describes as the acoustics of incarceration which created "prisoners who see nothing but hear everything, who were both completely confined and yet totally exposed". I visited this work almost every day of the exhibition.’
It’s important for me to say that most prisons use a degree of sonic torture. This is not something we can look at others and feel good about our own justice systems. I think I chose Saydnaya also because of its actually shape - it has three wings and there are three giants. Saydnaya is symmetrical. In the chronological timeline there is a move from symmetry to asymmetry. The planet they end up on is based largely on the Pre-Cambrian era of this planet when the fauna was more asymmetric.
Audition is not a book I would classify as easy to handsell in the bookshop (often the best ones aren’t!) Who do you think should read it, if you could make anyone read it who would that be?
As you can tell, I have a lot to say on a lot of things but this question has me absolutely stumped. It’s still a pretty weird idea to me that anyone would read this book and I’m incredibly grateful to anyone who does. I think the book requires a degree of generosity that feels really arrogant of me to ask from a reader. That being said, I have been really humbled by the people who have come to me to talk about the book and what they got out of the book. I think as well as generosity the book requires a degree of surrender as well and I think, actually, at the moment there are quite a few works examples of work that people are willing to surrender to. I’m thinking of things like the films All of Us Strangers and The Zone of Interest. I’m not putting my work on a par with these amazing pieces of art but I saw both of them in the cinema and, in the case of The Zone of Interest, I was sitting next to some very vocal people. It was an incredible experience hearing them coming to terms with the film. They started quite angry but sort of ‘settled into’ it quite quickly. My favourite director is Kelly Reichardt and I saw Showing Up (possibly her greatest film) at the film festival last year and was sitting in front of people who really hated it and it was another really helpful experience for me. Eavesdropping on this really candid conversation about all the things that I think a reader would also hate about my books. Of course a book is a much bigger time commitment than a film. I think that’s why Audition is short. I always feel like if I’m asking for generosity I need to respect that and not waster people’s time.
In the book’s acknowledgements you mention Anne Kennedy’s poetry book The Time of the Giants. How did the relationship between that book and Audition form, and were there any books that shaped Audition?
I have been a massive fan of Anne Kennedy’s work for a long time. I love her work and the way there is this reinvention of what her work is each time she publishes. She is a massive inspiration to me to build a new stage for each book. The Time of the Giants was the first book I returned to when I was writing Audition. I love the way it holds the ancient weight of the giant and the politics of the contemporary at the same time and kind of uses them to add this push and pull to the work which reflects the perspective readjustment you have to do to include the giant. I realise now I didn’t read a lot of books about giants apart from Anne’s. I did read Gulliver’s Travels. Oddly one of the hardest things about the book was getting the perspective right. I spent a lot of time walking round the city and my house with an imaginary friend who is three times my height.
In the acknowledgements I list a whole bunch of writers I was reading at the time. I think because the book includes a trans character it was important for me to be reading work by trans writers not as research but a reminder that as a cis person I will never be able to write the trans experience and that there are already amazing books being written that do this well. One of the most dangerous ideas a writer can have I think is that as a writer from outside a community they need to write this community’s stories because they are ‘untold’. There is an amazing essay by Alexander Chee called ‘How to Unlearn Everything: When it comes to writing the “other,” what questions are we not asking?’ The questions Chee identifies that writers are not asking are: ‘Why do you want to write from this character’s point of view? Do you read writers from this community currently? Why do you want to tell this story?’
If anyone wanted to learn more about justice and the prison system after reading Audition, where would you point them to next?
There are a lot of incredible books and discussions taking place at the moment. I really think the best first stop in Aotearoa is PAPA - People Against Prisons Aotearoa.
We’re headed very quickly toward a really dark time for justice in Aotearoa and I think it’s really important that we inform ourselves about the justice system, especially the business of prisons and evidence from research conducted into alternative forms of justice. Prisons are a capitalist and colonial construct; there's nothing natural about the kind of justice they attempt to elicit. The justice system the present government is envisioning and bringing about will benefit no one except the global companies who make money out of the prison industrial complex.
Any ideas for your next book yet?
I am really excited to be moving to Ōtautahi in July where I’m lucky enough to be one of the recipients of the Ursula Bethell residency at the University of Canterbury. While I’m there I’ll be working on a novel about the weaponisation of humour. It’s kind of about all those times I’ve been told to ‘lighten up’ and that it was ‘only a joke’.
Give us a quick review of the other finalists on the shortlist, if you’ve read them!
Before I start on that, I just want to strongly recommend: Turncoat by Tīhema Baker, Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia, The Artist by Ruby Solly, Biter by Claudia Jardine and Blood and Dirt: Prison Labour and the Making of New Zealand by Jared Davidson. These books all made an incredible impression on me this year.
Awards are weird and hard for writers. This is no fault of the people who organise and work for competitions. It would be so great if writers were paid adequately for their labour so some of the pressure could come off them at awards time. I think competition is antithetical to writing which relies on community and collaboration so it’s incredibly tricky that the only way to get money is to be in competition to get money - contestable arts funding I’m also looking at you. I’m really excited that one day we’ll find other community-building ways to financially support the amazing books being written here. In the meantime, I’m incredibly impressed with the way writers deal with the status quo - the way we celebrate and support each other.
Lioness is such an incredible exploration of wealth in New Zealand. Emily has written this incredibly compelling book which is making profound observations on money and what it actually buys you. It occurred to me last night that all four books on the shortlist include crime and I think Lioness is incredible in the way it describes what justice looks like to the wealthy and how so much is reliant on who is ‘in your court’ at any time. Emily’s craft blows my mind. Her control of narrative and character, her eye for the perfect detail described in ways that progress rather than stall the narrative - she’s just fucking amazing. I’ve read this book a couple of times and it just keeps giving. I also want to recommend the audio book which is read by Kerry Fox which adds a whole other layer to it.
I think because it’s so compelling readers might forget what an incredibly experimental novel Birnam Wood is. I think this is a massive part of the power of Eleanor’s writing. This ability to be absolutely ground-breaking and still deliver a story that’s compelling. I really love the way Eleanor controls point of view in Birnam Wood. The way an entire set of psychologies seems in play. Eleanor is so good at drawing entire lives in precisely chosen snippets of information. I also love the way the plot is structured so that solutions cause more problems. This is so satisfying in the book because we are allowed into each character’s mind so we get to see the life that has lead to the choices they make. Right from the start when Mira chooses to leave to solve a relationship problem and I’m like, ‘That is totally what Mira should do’ - it’s such a wild and fun ride.
A Better Place brings to life an incredibly vivid and original vision of World War 2. Stephen Daisley makes the concerns of World War 2 urgent and profound by holding the books stare longer, forcing the reader not only into the hell of war but into the hell of life after war. The narrative of the book is so well conceived and I think this is the real gold of it. Instead of trying to update the character’s psychology so they become stand-ins for our current thoughts and feelings, Stephen offers us a contemporary structure to view characters that read very much as products of their times. In this way, he’s created a historic work which feels more relevant and urgent than many I’ve read.
Suri previews two of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards poetry finalists.
Roof Leaf Flower Fruit: A Verse Novel by Bill Nelson - narrative poetry which traces family history with a shocking truth revealed.
Talia by Isla Huia explores whakapapa and peers with electric ease.
Listen below for Suri giving her lowdown and poetry reading from each book below.
The two other books on the poetry shortlist are:
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee
At the Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching
Keep updated here to find out the winners, announced May 15th, at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Why did you apply to be an Ockham's judge?
Well, I’ve always been a reader and I’ve been lucky to be attending the Ockham NZ Book Awards and previous iterations for several years. They never get old for me, it’s such a buzz to be there to celebrate the creativity and the accomplishments of our writers, in all fields. I decided I wanted to be part of it, and to give something back to the industry I’ve gained so much from. Plus, several good friends have been judges over the years and they heartily recommended the experience!
Tell us a bit about the process - how many submissions did you have to read? What did your days look like when trying to get through them all?
All up we had 43 books to read. From September to December, I cleared the decks, and read in the mornings before work, again in the evenings, and at weekends. Once I settled into the routine, I really welcomed the discipline.
As judges, you're obviously all extremely passionate about NZ fiction. Were you mostly harmonious in your decisions? What was your strategy as convener if/when disagreements arose?
Judging with Kiran and Anthony has been a dream, they are thoughtful, extremely well read and articulate. We all brought different strengths and experiences to the judging process which provided balance and alternative perspectives, as one would hope. We worked successfully together because of our mutual respect for each other, and clear communication from the beginning. If we needed time to consider alternative views we took it, our decisions were stronger for it.
What was it like meeting with international judge Natalie Haynes? Was there anything about her perspective on our shortlist that surprised you?
It was amazing, Natalie is very very smart, insightful and articulate. Her perspective as a reader on the other side of the globe, and her experience as a literary prize judge was invaluable, providing clarity and fresh eyes at a critical time in the process.
This particular shortlist is made up of four very distinctive stories that span across drastically different genres. Was there any intention behind that choice?
The short list celebrates established writers at the height of their powers, whilst drastically different they are united by their sense of social conscience. The short list is also a direct reflection of the incredible depth and range of writing we were presented with as judges. It’s exciting.
You started your career as a bookseller! If you were working in a bookshop right now, how would you handsell the shortlist to a customer?
Gosh, that was a while ago, here goes!
A Better Place shines new light on the impact of war, specifically WWII, on our collective conscious. With practiced economy Daisley conveys a whole world.
Audition asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much space. It’s a genre buster, like nothing you’ve ever read before, often confronting but told with heart and love.
Birnam Wood is a wild ride, give yourself over to this often hilarious, impeccably written, tightly plotted and richly imagined eco thriller.
Punchy, refined and frequently funny, Lioness is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage, and the search for authenticity.
We know you probably can’t tell us which of the shortlist was your favourite! But what are some of your favourite things about this shortlist? What was the reading experience for these four books like?
You’re right, they are all completely different reading experiences.
A Better Place excels in its tender exploration of the pervasive themes of the time through the eyes of two brothers; Audition excels in its world-building and its heart; Birnam Wood is pacy and sophisticated in its handling of a large cast and multiple narratives , and Lioness for its very contemporary take on women’s lives who are sometimes invisible and often overlooked or dismissed. It’s funny, sharp and relevant.
What’s your outlook on the landscape of NZ fiction right now, having spent months reading the best of the best?
Bowled over really, it was a spectacular year for NZ fiction. How lucky are we as readers to have all this richness within our reach. The experience of judging, of reading more NZ fiction than I ever have, and the conversations with my judging comrades has been a gift. I’ll miss it.
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
This week, Jenna reviewed Saraid de Silva’s Amma, a moving family story that follows three generations of Sri Lankan women. From Singapore, to Invercargill, to London, Saraid’s visceral storytelling is immersive with great plotting.
Listen to Jenna and Rachel chat below!
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions tells the tale of a lifelong friendship and a schizophrenia diagnosis which leads to murder.
Told through a historical, political and scientifc context, mental health and American healthcare are explored.
Listen to Jenna chat with Kathryn below.
Tommy Orange’s latest novel, Wandering Stars explores the decimation of American indigenous communities; from colonial violence to economic repression and addiction. Told through the eyes of Orvil Red Feather and his ancestors, ‘Wandering Stars’ explores a patchwork of characters reckoning with the violence of past and present, at all times searching for the beauty and wisdom of their ancestors. Painful, beautiful and at times funny, this piercing companion to There, There strikes at the heart and offers human truths impossible to look away from.
Your Ockham Fiction Champions, Hollie & Abby, have a double pass to the 2024 Ockham NZ Book Awards to giveaway!
To be in to win, head over to our Instagram. Make sure you’re following us and @newzealandbookawards , tag a friend in the comments, and use one word to describe your fave book on the fiction shortlist!
The winner will receive 2x tickets to the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on Wednesday 15 May, 7-10pm, at Aotea Centre - part of the Auckland Writer’s Festival.
French author Eilsa Shua Dusapin (Winter in Sokcho) is back with another atomospheric novel.
Nathalie arrives in Vladivostok to work on costumes for the Russian bar trio who are preparing their dangerous routine for the winter circus season.
This book captures a snapshot of a creative and physical undertaking by a small team of people. Punchy sentences, a sense of danger and a strong sense of place enrich Dusapin’s prose.
Translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins.
Listen to Jenna, Rachel and Stella’s conversation below.
If We Burn by Vincent Bevins (author of The Jakarta Method) explores a decade of the largest mass protests in modern history- from the Arab Spring to the Hong Kong uprisings. Combing through academic research and conducting interviews and with organisers, politicians and protesting participants, Bevins unearths the reasons why an era of mass mobilisation failed to materialise into political change. A sweeping look at the history of mass protests and its successes and failures, If We Burn is a sharp and fascinating analysis of a phenomena forgotten in a post-COVID era.
Listen below!
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
