| Have
you had the same editor for some time? |
|
Yes, we’ve
done eight or nine books together. I’ll only sign a contract
on the proviso that Alex will be my editor. He’s an out-of-house
freelance editor.
|
|
| You
like to keep him presumably because he’s a good editor, but good
in what sense? Because he lets you do what you want to do, or… |
|
| Oh no, I want an
editor that will… if he thinks I’m doing something wrong,
I don’t want an editor who’ll go Fine, if you want to do
it wrong, then that’s fine. If there’s something Alex thinks
really must be changed, I won’t keep it. I’ll dance up
and down and jump around. But I can always feel if I have a grain of
doubt and we’ve worked so long that Alex can always tell the
grain of doubt. His approach is not to argue but to just let me dance
around with rage and throw cutlery and stuff and the grain of doubt
will grow and grow and eventually I’ll go, And what is it that
you want? Why do you want it? All right, you can have that, but you
can’t have anything for ten pages! |
'I
don’t want an editor who’ll go Fine, if you want to do
it wrong, then that’s fine...'
|
| Are
there any examples in What The Birds See? |
|
| I’m sure
if I looked at it I’d see places. I’d need it in front
of me though. He’s a poet actually and that last bit, Where we
are this that and the other, Alex and I worked for a long time on that.
It was originally much longer. It was interesting to work with Alex
as a poet to see how he approached a kind of poem. Oddly enough, we
both went away and rewrote it and when we came back we had written
very similar, there were only like two places where… Sometimes
also with Alex I know he’s going to jump up and down about this
and he’ll say nothing about it and I’ll go, What about
this, don’t you think this is like an odd wording or something
and he’ll go It’s idiosyncratic or something but I quite
like it. Uh. OK! Rightio! He’s an extremely intelligent man.
An intelligent editor. And that’s what I like about him. I don’t
like editors who you get the feeling they’re making you change
because they feel like they have to do something. They’re being
paid to do something, so they have to do something. Usually the something
is something that didn’t really need doing. Alex never ever does
that. That’s why I like him. I don’t want anyone else touching
the books. |
'He’s
an extremely intelligent man. An intelligent editor. And that’s
what I like about him... '
|
| As
a reviewer you get tuned to quite subtle changes in the pitch and tone
of a book. I’m wondering if at any stage Alex spoke to you about
the authorial comment, the omniscient narrator comment on pp130/1,
which, if I’d been an editor, I’d at least have wanted
to talk about. It’s this bit here. ‘A child often lacks
experience…’ and
over here… |
|
| Oh, repetition. |
|
| Not
repetition. It’s just two very significant instances of author
comment about childhood in quick succession. |
|
| Do
you think these are the only times in the book there’s an authorial
comment? |
|
| No.
But if I’d been an editor, I might have been just a bit worried
that this double intrusion of a different voice could throw a reader
a bit. |
|
| It’s
possible that because authorial comment is spread throughout the book,
then it’s OK to use it in two close instances like that. But
most people don’t read a book closely like that. I don’t
think. |
|
| That’s
the trouble with being a reviewer. Every book you read, you read ultra-critically. |
|
| As a writer I do
it as well. I read other people’s books and go, You should have
done this that and the other. I look at my own books and think, I should
have written it like this. I see what you’re saying but had Alex
pointed that out I would have said, I’m happy with the way it… I
would argue that the whole theme is authorial comment. That ‘school
is a terrible place for a rejected child’. It’s sustained
authorial comment rather than two separate instances. That was also
one of my favourite… I like that bit “Today is Saturday:
Monday waits like an axe.” I can show you the bit in it where
they’re at the school… I like that bit. “She slobbered
her tongue halfway over her gums horribly and the child at once blushes
and grows pale.” So it’s often the most simple and overlookable
bits that I’m most happy with. I’ve got a feeling of shrinking
in horror and also blazing with embarrassment. To be able to sum that
emotion up in a couple of words… I’m pleased with the way
I wrote that. |
'It’s
often the most simple and overlookable bits that I’m most
happy with...' |
| There’s
not all that much background about you on the internet. |
|
| No, there’s
not. A lot of it’s the same thing over and over again. Do you
have that long CBC speech that seems to be floating around everywhere
about Southern Gothic? About how I see myself as an Australian Gothic
writer. I don’t think it’s on the net yet. |
|
| I
do remember Ursula Dubosarsky telling me you were a very Gothic writer,
and my first thought was What? The two books I’ve read, I wouldn’t
have automatically used that term… |
|
| Certainly my work
reflects the traditions of southern Gothic writing. I used the speech
at the CBC conference this year (2002) and I thought I’m not
going to write another conference speech that is just like, “I
like writing… This is what I write… I like blue… The
sky is blue…”, I’m going to actually write a serious
piece that uses the brains of these people. You know, I’m sitting
in front of a whole lot of teachers and librarians, they should be
able to think! And so I did. I wrote a really serious essay, not so
much a speech. A critical examination of my own style. I thought it
was a good speech. I was glad that I’d written it. I thought,
if I’m going to face another thirty years of writing then damn
me if people are going to bloody well spend it pouring scorn on what
I do. From now on, it’s a serious business for me. |
'I’m
sitting in front of a whole lot of teachers and librarians, they
should be able to think!...' |
| When
you say southern Gothic, you mean southern American Gothic presumably? |
|
| Mmm. Because my
work certainly does reflect some of those southern Gothic traits. There’s
a kind of grim humour in it. The characters are often in isolated settings
and the characters operate outside what is generally seen to be acceptable
human boundaries. A lot of these things particularly apply to Sleeping
Dogs, which is an extremely southern Gothic book. |
'my
work certainly does reflect some of those southern Gothic traits...' |
| Have
you read Erskine Caldwell? |
|
| No. But just in
the time I went home I read The Grapes Of Wrath for the first time.
And I just thought it was hilarious! I was rolling around on the seat.
It’s a cracker! It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever
read! It was so terrible! I mean it was funny in that awful southern
Gothic way that As I Lay Dying is funny. Dragging this poor dead woman
around the country! |
'I
just thought it was hilarious! I was rolling around on the seat.
It’s
a cracker!' |
| I
think it’s a fabulous book. |
|
| Ah, it’s
my favourite book. I love that book! My absolute favourite book in
the whole world. But don’t you think it’s hilariously,
grimly funny… It’s only baroquely funny… southern
Gothic funny. It’s either laugh or fall back and cry because
it’s all so awful. Oh I love that book with a passion. My mother
reads very little. I gave a speech last year where I listed about 50
of my favourite books and just had a sentence to say why and she got
sort of interested in it and because I had it as my favourite she read
it. The idea of my mum reading As I Lay Dying was hilarious. When I
wrote the list I was surprised at the books that jumped out at me.
If my house was burning down which are the ones I’d chuck out
the window. I would never have thought that Peyton Place would make
it on the list! Or A Dog Of Your Own which is actually a book about
dog breeders. I love dogs. I’ve had dogs all my life. Of all
the dog books I own that is my long-time favourite. You objected to
Catcher In The Rye being on the blacklist? |
'I
love dogs. I’ve had dogs all my life...' |
| Yes. |
|
| I hate that book!
God, I hate that book. It was great success that list. Every time I
read out a new name there were either cheers or hisses in the audience. |
|
| When
did you read Catcher In The Rye? |
|
| When I was a teenager,
about 17. I always think I must go back and read it again. But I just
think life is short. I read it at a time when it was already an extremely
famous book and a book that everyone said you must read, you must read.
Whether it suffered from being not the book I expected it to be, I
don’t know, but I do know I hated it with a passion. But not
as much as I hated Tristram Shandy. But at least Tristram
Shandy comes
from a completely different era. And there were even things about that
I did like. I did like his black page when one of the characters dies.
But there was nothing about Catcher In The Rye that I liked. |
'there
was nothing about Catcher In The Rye that I liked...' |
| From
one piece I did find on the net I discovered you feel that children
and writing don’t go together. |
|
| I think that to
really write requires the investment of a great deal of yourself and
I think if you have children, particularly if you’re the mother… There
are very few great women writers who had children. Or they didn’t
start writing until after the children were grown up and left home.
Writing requires an investment of yourself, yet if you have a child
you have to give it to the child. I don’t think you can do both.
I can’t possibly imagine that you could do both with any… it
would be the writing that would suffer. I certainly know in my case
it would be the writing that would suffer. I look for excuses not to
do it. Because I grew up with five brothers and sisters, four much
older than the other two, I have very clear memories of waking up at
night, woken by the baby crying and stuff. There is a part of me that
thinks I have already dealt with children in my life. But mostly I
think a writer has to be, or any kind of an artist who is committed
to their work, or maybe just naturally is, deeply egocentric. Having
children doesn’t sit well with that. |
'Writing
requires an investment of yourself, yet if you have a child you have
to give it to the child. I don’t think you can do both.' |
| |
|
