Auckland Writers Festival 2014: "May We Be Forgiven" with A.M. Homes, chaired by Paula Morris

Guest post by Campbell, Readers Services, Central City Library.


I’m here to see A M Homes speak; I’ve recently read two of her books. I’m not late, but the lights are off and the room is almost full. Naturally people take the end seats first and I navigate around people’s legs and bags to get to a seat by the left wall. I stand on somebody's bag and feel something squish beneath my step. I spill some water on some lady. I am sorry. I’m doing my best. She is on stage already, dressed head to foot in shades of black, her white skin is not tan but not pale, a generous helping of brown hair is thrown this way and that. A yellow dot floats over one cheek. Sitting with her on stage is Paula, in a black and white stripy skirt. Paula wants to talk about Jewishness. Her theory about the title of the book is wrong. The stage behind them is all black and orange, the festival colours. They talk about Scarlett Johannsen suing a French author, then talk about having a cold. She gestures with her hands, linking her fingers, holding hands with herself, touching her fingertips together flinging her hands outward. She is super confident, super relaxed and super healthy. She invites the entire audience to an artistic retreat just out of New York. I want to go. People are still coming in, they are missing the gold. The rare empty seats are filling up around me. A man behind me is obviously annoyed that I am using my phone as a light to take notes, I put my finger over the light and write in the muted red glow, it is just enough. She tells jokes. One falls completely flat but she turns the failure into a joke, this gets a laugh. She talks about being adopted and jokes that she is still up for adoption, one person sitting close behind laughs loudly. She drops names. She talks about her memoir, says it was like picking at a scab every day. It felt awful but she came out of it feeling like she’d had a massive therapy session. I would say that sounds accurate. She reads a passage from the latest book. I know the book and remember the scene. It involves a surprise orgy at laser tag. It’s a good scene. She reads quickly, in short stops and starts, only looks to her left. She is different when she reads. Later she says ‘in America we like to pretend things didn’t happen’. She talks about America. They translate very few books. Her books are not popular there.

A.M. Homes

Angels & Aristocrats at AWRF 2011

Campbell is a contemporary artist who in August will be showing at the Auckland Art Fair, where a "thought-provoking public programme of talks" is planned. He is also a member of the Readers Services team at Central Library, and as such he experienced a sort of sneak-preview of the genre by attending the AWRF event where Kim Hill interviewed "art detective" Mary Kisler about her new book Angels & Aristocrats, or Angels & Aah'-ristocrats, as Kim called it, a look at the forgotten treasures of our public art collections and their history. Here are some of the thoughts the talk provoked in him:
 
There is a stage on which two women sit. I got here just before they came onstage, one at a time, the louder one first, followed by the quieter one. Orange advertising and seashells surround them; seashells that glow with orange from within. The space between where I sit and where they sit is filled with at least one hundred grey heads.

Are these women English? I am confused about their accents, maybe this is the sound the English make when they have been surrounded by kiwis for a long time, or maybe it is the other way round. The loud one interrupts constantly. Even when there is no interruption, the sound of interruption is still in her voice.

They talk and I learn a couple of things, that most of the artworks that the book concerns were bought by Scottish and Jewish people, that there was a depression at the end of the 1800’s and I never knew Flanders was a place. I thought it was a name, so I thought Flanders was a person. There is laughter from jokes about wine. Jokes I don’t understand but which hit their mark nonetheless.

This is an art history lecture as I remember them. This one probably more history than art, but what can you really say about good art? Nothing needs to be said, it’s just there. Sometimes all the talking makes me like the art less, but the history lesson that comes with these paintings helps me engage a little more.

I love contemporary art, the blank canvases, empty films, absurd spectacles and sculpture that is mistaken for garbage and gets cleaned up by the cleaners, even the stuff I don’t particularly like – I like that it exists. I think this sounds like a good book. A book which is wanted and needed, but I really am so happy that we have moved beyond this kind of art, so happy for the invention of photography, so glad big touring exhibitions of landscape paintings are not such a big deal anymore.

-- Campbell

An hour with Lionel Shriver at AWRF 2010

This utterly singular description of an hour with Lionel Shriver, chaired by Ms. Singularity herself, Charlotte Grimshaw, was contributed by Campbell, from the Readers Services team. 

The new book is So Much for That .

Lionel Shriver wears dark colours; her hair is pulled back. She tells jokes. She is not that funny and they are not jokes, but there is always some sort of laughter. Things get tense after the wrong questions are asked. Charlotte revises her notes, takes more time, and brings up Tolstoy. There is a big silver snail on the stage. The new book is about a woman who is dying but refuses to admit it. She clings to hope. Her friends stop going to visit her. They are too awkward and too afraid of their own mortality to be there for her. This is a problem with our society and with people in general. This is a personal tirade against people deserting each other. We will all have our chance at this unfortunately. Healthcare is another huge problem, obviously. I do not want to think about it.

She reads from her book. Her voice is dramatic but stern, like CNN. The characters are Flicka, Glynis and Shep. Her reading illustrates her point perfectly. It comes to be time for questions. Someone asks a cheeky one and gets a good laugh. She does not answer the question properly but we all understand.
It was raining heavily outside and now inside, it is warm but it still feels wet. I do not want to get sick. I cannot get sick this winter. I want my warm bed and my pyjamas, my lemon, honey and ginger and a stupid movie.