Writing from the heart: An hour with Chris Cleave

What has been the best day of your life?

What has been the worst day of your life?

What do you hope for?

What do you fear?

These are the questions Chris Cleave poses hapless interviewees during the exhaustive formal research he conducts for each of his novels.

His informal research he characterises as “quite creepy” and involves stalking innocent members of the populace foolish enough to have heartfelt conversations on public transport.

Like any great hunter, Chris uses disguise and cunning, he sits behind his targets wearing unconnected ear buds, nods his head in time to the imaginary beats and captures their vocabulary, grammar and idiom. You have been warned. Stay alert for insanely grinning Englishmen, they want to pinch your charming Kiwi-isms.

Host Kate de Goldi, who described Chris’s books as “politicised, moral and completely readable”, asked Chris about his debut novel Incendiary. Written as an open letter to Osama Bin Laden from a grieving mother whose child died in an imagined London terror attack, it was due for release on 7/7/2005. Two thousand pre-publication posters depicting a smoking London city-scape and the words “What if?” were plastered all over the London Underground. Then that same day, the real London attacks kicked off, and Cleave, with his publishers, had the novel pulled from the shelves. This was for him a “fraught, frantic and complicated decision” but he still believes it was the right one.

The Geodome audience then paused for a few minutes while a bumble-bee drunk on the aroma from some onstage freesia was corralled and dealt to by festival organiser Morrin “No8 wire” Rout.

Chris next talked about the influence of parenthood on his work. Incendiary was written to mark the occasion of the birth of his first child and engaged with themes that previously had been purely abstract: grief at the loss of a child, injustice and the task of keeping loved ones safe in a potentially volatile and dangerous world.

Chris now dislikes his pre-fatherhood writing and characterised it as smug, self-reverential, full of ridiculous pyrotechnics and hubris. His youthful writing was in the pursuit of glory and was as a result terrible.

This self-analysis prompted New Zealand product design writer Michael Smythe to ask whether this was exclusively auto-critique on Chris’s part or whether another party had nudged him towards this realisation?

Cleave gleefully admitted that yes, several rejection letters for at least two full length manuscripts had eventually caused him to reconsider the direction of his writing. The fate of these rejected masterpieces, The Roadkill Cookbook and Tequilla Mockingbird, was not alluded to but the “rather charming” publishers’ rejection letters are filed in Chris’s big envelope of bitterness.

This was a delightfully wise and witty session from an author of compassion and curiosity, and from a man who isn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve. I’m going to ask myself some of Chris’s questions but I suspect they will, rather like his novels, make my heart hurt.

Old stuff at Central Library Tuam

There’s nothing like opening a new library. There’s a lot of excitement round here at the moment as opening day for the brand-new Aranui Library draws near (this Saturday! 11am! woo!).

And we’re not jealous here at Tuam Street, not at all.  They have a beautiful, brand-new, architecturally designed, art- and light- filled facility, with water features, rolling parkland, and oh-so-shiny brand new books, movies, magazines …

It’s not a competition, we tell ourselves.  After all, we love our post-industrial, dystopian-chic-themed electrical warehouse makeover.  We love that the bus exchange is right next door.  We love that we are in the heart of the city, where big things are happening every day.  We love the Re:Start mall, and the Escarto coffee cart, and Ballantynes.

We love having so much of the old Central library’s stock here, and working in tandem with Central Library Peterborough library we provide access to family history, newspapers, magazines, motor manuals, the law collection and all the expertise that Central used to offer.  We love that our shelves are full, not just with the latest shiniest bestsellers, but also with Wodehouse and Woolf and Austen and Ballard, with Salinger and Verne and Kerouac.

We also love the Aotearoa New Zealand Collection. We tried really hard to fit it all in here, but even with the best of intentions we are only able to offer a ‘representative sample’.  The rest of it is safely stored off-site, but it’s only a hold request away.  What’s here, at Central Library Tuam, is distracting enough.

Stepping into the ANZC area is a bit like opening a packet of pineapple lumps.  You think to yourself, I’ll just have one.  Maybe two.  And then before you know it, you’ve eaten an entire packet spent a whole hour browsing the shelves, and people are wondering where on earth you’ve got to.

I went down the rabbit hole this morning, and in just a short 15 minute browse came up with these gems:

• A 1963 edition of Just Cooking, Thanks (being a dissertation on New Zealand seafood), by Noel Holmes. Mmm, tentacles.
• A 1942 book called Medical Advice from a Backblock Hospital (a bit afraid to read this one in case it involved biting on a bullet while someone sawed off a leg)
• A delicious wee gem called Bits and Pieces by Gran, ZB Personality.  I LOVE this book!  A quick flick through offered everything from sage words – “Indulging in fits of bad temper shortens life”;  to recipes – mix equal parts minced ham, beetroot and gherkin to make a savoury spread for biscuits; to must-have outdoorsy advice – find here a “good mixture for waterproofing a tent” that you can mix up in the kitchen.
• Rosemary Rees’ 1933 travel diary, called New Zealand Holiday, in which she notes the large numbers of “young, fine, splendid men pouring into the country.”

Also on the shelves, reference copies of Consumer magazine and the Listener, lots and lots of books by New Zealand novelists and poets, and the gripping, relentlessly paced Ocean Outfall Handbook (A Manual for the Planning, Investigation, Design and Monitoring of Ocean Outfalls to Comply with Water Quality Management Objectives).

There IS a fine print clause with ANZC material – none of it can be borrowed, and you can’t bring your tea and sandwiches in with you, but you can (and should) come and browse, sit for a while, and discover all the hidden treasure that awaits.

We may not be the newest shiniest library on the block, but just remember this:  sometimes, old stuff is good stuff.