The book’s life and mine
So, it’s been almost a month between updates, and what have I been doing? Somehow I’ve managed to fill in the time. I know I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but that only took a day. I’ve been writing up some of our travel stories for the Cosmotourist website. I’ve been swamped at the day job. And I’ve been, very slowly, working on the next novel. And other things, I guess.
Meanwhile, Lessons to Learn is out there in the world, and every now and then, I get to hear from people who’ve read it. Just today, I noticed that it was called a ‘delightful’ on Beattie’s Book Blog. A couple of weeks ago, a classmate forwarded me a Sunday Star Times review which contained the words ‘gifted with a flair for deadpan comedy’ and also ’sex-mad Aussie sloven’ (the latter luckily referring to a character).
And then there’s Fiona, the editor of AUT’s student magazine, debate, who has forwarded me some copies of Issue 16, which contains an interview and a way-too-large picture. And there’s the people who’ve read it through Bookcrossing, and my lovely friends who pre-ordered their copy or have bought it from the stores.
It’s strange to think of the book in other people’s hands at the other end of the earth. It’s like leaving a part of me at home, it’s keeping that connection, while here in London, I catch the tube and walk along South Bank, and what is normal life for now continues.
Comment by mary mac
September 16, 2007 @ 2:31 am
Hi Tash. I picked your novel up at Dymocks yesterday where it was looking face out at me in the NZ section not too far from mine! As a co-conspirator in the Vic Uni MA in Creative Writing course 2005, I’ve been meaning to buy Lessons to Learn for weeks now. And guess what? I’ve finished it already. A delicious read on a wet Sunday in Wellington. The book is as nicely formed and crisp and satisfying as the apples on the cover — there is much I loved in the tale and recognised in the telling and many moments of delight when I realised why I’d been led here or there by the narrative. Charlotte’s childhood — her relationship with her father (I loved him lifting her up praying from the floor and popping her into bed) — the way she embraced the church and Sunday School despite his misgivings (the wondrous details of those Sunday School lessons! right down to the toilet rolls and duct tape for their creations and the damned stickers) — the way she found love there and her growing confusion and then worse than that …. and Charlotte choosing to go to teach in Korea where she discovers English is as ungraspable and confusing as God. Oh, the laugh out loud bits that erupt from the Korean/NZ culture mix: the Korean boy asked to name his favourite animal in a test answering ‘Favourite animal: Pig. Why: Because they are delicos.’ And that thread is carried through wonderfully to the restaurant called Happy Pigs (have I got that right?) with a pig dressed in clothes in the windows and the real reason why the dogs are always barking when Charlotte is at the Speak-English camp. You have a quiet and determined way of mixing funny and nasty and sad that works wonderfully well. The Mr Parks and their Speak-English school are terrific almost Dickensian inventions — the description of the life of the Korean woman caring for her sick son and waiting each day for the English teacher to arrive I found tremendously moving. I very much liked spending time with Miss Charlotte and her gentle, questioning life. Thank you, Tash.