Anne Enright and "The Gathering" at AWF17

Thanks to Chelsea from Central Library for this blog post and fan mail combo!

If you thought your days of pushing and elbowing your way into a theatre were behind you, think again. The ladies (and a splattering of men) of the Auckland Writers Festival were here to see Anne Enright and there was no stopping them. Even the sacred reserved seating stood no chance. If you’re unfamiliar with Anne Enright, she is Ireland’s current Fiction Laureate and winner of the Man Booker Prize for her 2007 novel The Gathering. Personally I’ve been slow to the Anne Enright party, having read only one of her books. However, said book The Green Road completely blew my mind, so I was keen to hear more of what she had to say.

Kate De Goldi, award-winning author in her own right, chaired the event and opened with a quote from The Green Road, “I’m sorry I can’t invite you to dinner, I’m Irish and my family is mad”. This fairly succinctly sums up Enright’s writing, with much of her work focussing on the family unit with a dose of Irish humour.

To begin with, De Goldi and Enright discussed the roles within The Green Road, in particular the role of the mother. With the theme of motherhood being so important in Irish tradition and Enright being a mother herself, she has a keen interest in breaking stereotypes and exploring women in all their imperfection. Rosaleen, the mother in The Green Road, is a needy woman who is so angry that her adult children have all left her that she decides to sell the family home to spite them. Her self-indulgence is in contrast to her daughter’s selflessness as a dutiful wife, mother and daughter. The two sons in the novel represent Irish migration, with one being an aid worker travelling to far-flung places like the Irish missionaries did, and the other taking the traditional route of New York.

Enright’s writing is structured and concise which is necessary in a book that spans decades. What isn’t said in Enright’s novels is just as important as what is, as when Dan’s homosexuality is not named when the reader first meets Dan as a teenager in Ireland, but when we meet him again in 90s New York, he is free to express himself. Enright explains that she did not address his sexuality at first because she ‘had to wait for the world to catch up’.

De Goldi and Enright then touched on the novel The Forgotten Waltz, another book that explores the complexities in women; their loves, mistakes and sexual desires. It was at this point that Enright’s sardonic humour really shone, as she lamented the ongoing fight for feminism. Speaking of women’s rights in Ireland, she told us how the abortion referendum began in the 80s, a referendum that is still continuing today. She had the audience in hysterics when saying “We forgot that sex produces children – if you read a newspaper you’d think sex produces bikinis”. She also garnered applause when she said that by writing about families she “risks being described as domestic – another word for female and not very important. Which is bullshit”. If Enright ever runs for president she has my vote.

After a brief reading it was time for questions, which ironically all came from men, a fact that was not lost on my disgruntled neighbour. I couldn’t blame her, I too was thinking it strange. To be fair however, the first questioner did tell us about his love for feminism and his daughters, as well as his whole backstory, as is often the case with those daring enough to brave the microphone.

As the session wrapped up Enright praised De Goldi for her high quality questions, suitable praise for De Goldi as she had clearly done her research. Then the applause was over and the race was on again, this time to be the first in the signing queue. I somewhat regretted my choice to sit at the front of the theatre as I set my face in grim determination to make it out.

A good twenty minutes later I had my recently purchased copy of The Gathering signed. I had meant to tell Enright of my love for Ireland but I became completely starstruck and barely muttered a syllable. Placing my embarrassment aside, I set off to find a strong coffee, turned the pages of The Gathering to its first chapter, breathed in the new book smell, and began to read.

Michael Grant at AWF 2016: Front Lines

Chelsea from Central City Library tells us about getting to hear one of her favourite writers of all time at the Writers Festival, and taking a turn at the mike! 

Whilst I sat waiting for Michael Grant’s session I eavesdropped on two older women sitting next to me. The one closest to me was asking her friend who they were seeing, with the reply being, straight from the festival programme, "Michael Grant who has written over 150 books for children and young adults". Part of me was so pleased that these women were taking a chance on an author they didn’t know but another part of me wanted to sit them down in a corner with Gone for a few hours so they could see what they’d been missing. Grant then came in, a suave man with a cool American accent, who immediately made a joke about his glass of water being vodka. I decided this was going to be a great session. 

After a brief introduction from Jane Higgins, reading reviews of Grant’s books, the emotive book trailer for Front Lines was played. Against a backdrop of images of war a girl’s voice is telling us why women enlisted, that they were not heroes, they were cold and scared and just doing their part. This is the premise of Grant’s latest young adult novel, an alternative history where women are allowed to enlist for World War II.

Higgins asked Grant what drove him to write Front Lines to which Grant answered, rather honestly, that one reason is marketing. There’s a market for strong female characters but he was tired of the dystopia genre so wanted to move beyond that. His second reason is that he cares a lot about history even though he comes ‘from a country indifferent to learning anything from history’. Grant has a healthy cynicism for American politics but it is also clear that he is very knowledgeable. He explains his research process of reading books on WWII, visiting museums, going inside submarines to get a feel for them and even shooting guns in Las Vegas. Grant is funny, with jokes for both the teenagers and adults in the audience. Such as ‘spoiler alert: the Nazis lose’ and joking that America got into WWII late when it was still possible to make money off it.

Despite the violence in Grant’s books he actually doesn’t approve of guns. He told an animated story of how he bought a gun as a young man because he was convinced that a man who had beaten him up was going to kill him. However upon showing the gun to his family he accidently blew a hole in the floor, not realising that the gun was loaded. This shocked Grant, realising that he could have accidently shot a family member, so much that he traded the gun for a camera and never looked back. In his books however Grant doesn’t shy away from real action and violence, starting from 'Animorphs' up till his more recent series. He explains that he’ll write so ‘you hear the bones cracking’ which elicits an audible gasp from the woman next to me. I sincerely hope that she isn’t regretting her decision to see Grant.

Grant also touches on his 'Gone' series, explaining in a nutshell that it’s about a small town that one day has a dome appear over it and all those over 15 years old have disappeared. You can imagine the chaos that ensues. It is not that unlike ‘Under the Dome’ except that Grant wrote ‘Gone’ first. Grant says he’s been criticised for having such young characters do awful things but he says it’s because ‘an 11 year old with a gun and vodka is scary. If they were 18 it’d just be another night in LA’. When asked why he kills off characters he explains that his characters are his employees and sometimes they’re just not performing. He also says that he needs to be realistic, that you can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg. I really appreciate his honesty here and his fantastic metaphors. Super fans will be pleased to hear that Grant is working on a new book set in the ‘Gone’ universe and that there will be some characters who cross over into this new book.

Finally comes question time and I make my way over to the microphone, even though I am sweating buckets. I thank him for writing books that I can recommend to teenagers, and especially boys, in the library. I then ask him what young adult books he would recommend. Grant replies that he actually steers away from young adult books as he doesn’t want them to affect his writing but he does recommend the author Andrew Smith. He then gives some lovely praise to his wife Katherine Applegate, whom he challenged to win the Newberry Medal. She did with her 2012 book The One and Only Ivan. As I sit back down the woman next to me tells me ‘Great question, well done’ and I decide that I quite like her. The session wraps up and upon leaving I see Grant signing books and chatting to teens and I think what a cool and intelligent role model he must be for them.

-- Chelsea

John Boyne at AWF 2016: The narrative of history

Chelsea from Central City Library is a huge reader of YA fiction and her mission for AWF 2016 was to see John Boyne and Michael Grant. Here's number one accomplished:

As way of introduction to this stand-out event which had quickly sold out its smaller venue and been relocated to the ASB Theatre, Guy Somerset read out some harsh criticisms of Boyne, that he is full of himself, and is a 'knob'. This drew laughter, as this smiling, youthful, bald-headed man in his jeans and t-shirt appeared to be quite the opposite of a knob, and indeed spent the next hour proving that criticism wrong.

The Irish accent is undoubtedly the most musically beautiful to listen to, which endears you to Boyne even more. He began by introducing his new collection of short stories, Beneath the Earth. Boyne joked that he had amassed enough good will with his publisher after ten years to be allowed to publish it as short story collections are notoriously risky. His short stories revolve around the unifying themes of betrayal and isolation. Those familiar with his work will know that he does such emotions well and with authenticity.

Somerset asked Boyne a few brief questions about his earlier novels which pleased long-term fans such as myself, and hopefully interested others in reading them. Boyne was not afraid to be himself, switching between talking seriously about which emotions drive his writing to joking about his dislike for Hugh Grant films.

Somerset then moved on to the main feature, Boyne’s 2015 novel A History of Loneliness, set in his native Ireland. Boyne explained that in many small countries, such as Ireland and New Zealand, authors are expected to write about their own countries, in a way we don’t expect from American authors. Boyne refused to, however, until he had a story he felt strongly about, and that came in the form of a novel about child abuse in the Catholic Church. Growing up in the Catholic Church and school system, Boyne comes from a place of knowledge and emotion, and he is not afraid to mention the abuse that he suffered and the resulting impact it had on his life. Because of this, he found that this story just flowed out of him.

Boyne read aloud two extracts from the book, his accent bringing the characters to life. Well adept at reading aloud, he looked up constantly and remained in eye contact with the crowd. The first extract was funny with black humour, the second was extremely sad and shocking, leaving the whole theatre silent. Boyne explained that he wasn’t trying to bring down the church, but rather bring light to this problem, and open a conversation on how it can be stopped. He interviewed many priests for this book, and found that they all suffered from loneliness, going home to empty houses. He wonders if this loneliness lends itself to being perverted into abuse.

He then briefly touched on his books for young people, the most famous being The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Fans will be pleased to hear that a tenth anniversary edition is to be published in November, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Many of these novels are set in wartime, as he likes to explore what role children play in war. Characters from ‘The Boy…’ have cameos in his new YA book The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, a quirk he also likes to do with his adult novels.

Finally came question time, the most poignant of them coming from a young woman who, with a trembling voice, admitted that she had been abused as a child. She asked for advice from Boyne on how to deal with her feelings and form relationships. He replied that if you can admit that in front of all these people than you are stronger than you think. Don’t allow those who have hurt you in the past to still have power over you. A sentiment that we can all do with remembering.

-- Chelsea