I am increasingly reading eBooks and listening to audio books. During 2019 I enjoyed listening to Helen Garner read her collection of short essays in True Stories (originally published in 1997). As I listened, I recalled that I had read one piece in particular — about cruising on a Russian ship — in a newspaper, so it was great to hear it again. Also, her reflections on the controversy she faced when she wrote The First Stone (1995) were fascinating, particularly given the more recent #MeToo movement — for an excellent reconsideration of The First Stone, see Gail Acorn‘s 2018 discussion, published in The Guardian. I notice that Helen Garner has kept quiet so far about the current debates about what constitutes sexual harassment but, since she’s an obsessive diarist, no doubt we will have the opportunity to hear her thoughts at some stage.
This year I also managed to keep up with some of the many recently published novels. Here are three of my favourites. (I read some on eBook, listened to others through my Audible subscription and, for Margaret Atwood’s latest novel, I did both modalities, swapping seamlessly from listening while driving to reading on my iPad!)
You never know what’s going to lead you to a short story. My latest story evolved from a visit to the State Library of New South Wales for a talk on some of the interesting historical artefacts and materials from their collection. During the event, I was intrigued by the story of Frederick William Birmingham, a civil engineer at Parramatta in the 1860s, who designed a flying machine which he unsuccessfully tried to sell to the Americans. He had been inspired by a dramatic vision of a flying vessel which he described as an ‘Ark’, manned by a man-shaped ‘spirit’. Birmingham’s vision of a UFO, long before such manifestations entered popular culture, was compelling. However, his increasing levels of obsession and paranoia meant that he became insolvent and ended his days in the asylum. For a comprehensive account of the primary documents and Birmingham’s life see Chris Aubeck’s ‘Birmingham’s Ark‘.
(Public domain image)
Inspired by this story, I wrote an account of entirely imagined
events of a fictional character, living in the Parramatta asylum in the late
1800s. After some thought (and several rewrites!) I decided to use fictitious
names within my story, since I felt I was departing a long way from how
Birmingham himself would have interpreted his experiences.
It was great news when I learned that my story ‘Asylum’ was awarded First Prize in the 2019 Inaugural Margaret Cech Writing Competition which was run by the Southern Highlands Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, New South Wales. The story appeared in The Writers’ Voice (the bulletin of the FAWNSW) this month and, as the competition allows authors to retain their copyright, I have reproduced the story here.
Hope you like it!
Asylum
by Alison Ferguson
Dr
Williams cleaned his spectacles and, after refolding his handkerchief into his
top pocket, tried again to make out the scribble under the blots of ink that
raced across each page in the dog-eared bundle on the desk before him. He
sighed. It was useless. Perhaps if the light were better? It was too early to
call for an orderly to light the lamp. Rifling
through, he selected a page with relatively fewer crossings-out and smudges and
took it over to the long windows to peruse again in the shaft of afternoon
sunlight. This time he made out a few words: flying machine, rotors, strange alien figures. He sighed again. It
was no use. The lunatic’s account of his visitation was indecipherable and, no
doubt even if he could read the writing, incoherent.
(Parramatta Hospital for the Insane, 1875)
‘Dr
Williams?’ One of the orderlies hovered by the door. ‘Was you wanting to see Mr
Cleary? It’s just that we puts the inmates out in the garden of an
afternoon. ‘elps settle ‘em for the
night, you see.’
Drawing
his fob watch from his waistcoat pocket, Dr Williams considered whether he’d
make the three o’clock coach back into Sydney town if he left now. Caught between going and staying, he shifted
his weight from one foot to the other. If any other colleague but Dr McIntosh
had urged him to delay his return to London solely for the purpose of reading a
patient’s journal, he would have dismissed the notion. Well, he was here now
and, since the journal in question could just as well have been in hieroglyphs,
he’d might as well see the patient in person.
‘Bring
Mr Cleary in to see me. Oh, and,’ he added, ‘when Dr McIntosh arrives, bring
him straight up to join me.’ He felt the tea-pot ‘And some fresh hot water.’
Mr
Cleary must have been waiting just outside the door for he came in directly. He
was a short man, rail-thin and his eyes, wide and staring, looked to be
strangers to sleep.
‘Glad
to meet you. Glad to meet you,’ Mr Cleary said, holding out his hand in
greeting. ‘Dr McIntosh told me about your interest in my discoveries.’
Dr
Williams was taken aback. If it weren’t for his oddly startled gaze, the
patient had every appearance of any sane man meeting another of his professional
class. Mr Cleary was a civil engineer, Dr Williams reminded himself that even a
professional man could lose his grip on reality. He repressed a shiver at the
thought.
‘So,
what are your thoughts on my journal, Dr Williams? Mr Cleary had seated himself
in one of the large leather chairs by the window, the lines in his face now cut
in sharp shadow in the slanting light.
‘I,
I confess I cannot say,’ Dr Williams began. ‘I found the writing difficult—’
‘Ha!
You doctors are usually the ones with the bad handwriting, what?!’ Mr Cleary’s
joviality edged toward a note of hysteria.
Dr
Williams took the chair opposite him and spoke slowly and, he hoped,
soothingly. ‘I’d like to hear your story directly from you, if I may. As Dr McIntosh
told you, I am most interested.’
At
this, Mr Cleary settled back into his chair and, closing his eyes as if to
better remember, began his story.
‘It
was late and my usual nightcap of milk and cardamom had gone cold by the time I
finished reading and retired for the evening. I woke abruptly, coming into full wakefulness
without a trace of lingering stupor. I was seized by a sensation of great energy
and I threw on my coat and walked out of my cottage into the winter night. I
strode off, heedless of where my footsteps were taking me. The streets of
Parramatta were dark and, without any lantern to guide me, it was by the
radiance of the stars sprayed across the heavens that I found my way into the
park. Two points of light emerged and
grew steadily larger and, as they came closer, I saw they were vaporous and
swirling. They hung before me, unsuspended by any means I could discern, and
their shapes reassembled till I perceived that they were two heads, the first
appearing as our Lord Bishop and the second at the Governor of New South Wales.
I began to shake, fearing that I had lost my mind.’
Mr
Cleary stopped talking abruptly and leaned forward. ‘You know I’m not insane,
don’t you?’
‘I,
I —,’ Dr Williams was caught off guard.
‘I’m
only in here for my protection. They are after my discoveries, you see. Dr McIntosh
suggested this would be the safest place.’
‘Of
course, Dr McIntosh is very wise in these matters.’ Dr Williams looked to the door. The orderly
seemed to be taking a very long time to return with the hot water.
Mr
Cleary resumed his reflective posture, and in the same sure tones of one
telling an oft-told story, continued, ‘Darkness, heavy with dew, fell like a
cloak about me and I turned this way and that, unsure of how to return home.
Then came a vibration, a thudding so intense that the beat of my heart leapt to
join its rhythm. How was it that no-one from the town came running out to find
the source? Louder and louder it came until I was upon it, whereupon the noise
fell to a low hum. A cylindrical shape, tapered at both ends, hovered at waist
height above the ground. At its highest
point it would have been perhaps twelve feet; its diameter perhaps twice that.
However, its gleaming surface was what drew my gaze. I longed to touch it, so
smooth did it look, without any visible rivet or join.
Although
it looked seamless, an aperture appeared and a creature such as I had never
seen, nor could have imagined, emerged and beckoned me to follow. It was oddly
humanoid, though its arms seemed disproportionately long. Strangely, as soon as
I saw it, I felt calm and certain: as certain, in fact, as I had ever felt in
my fretful life. I have no memory of how I entered the vessel; for now, it
seemed to me that it must be a kind of ship, though propelled by some mechanism
unknown to me. Once inside, the being
indicated a kind of table, although closed on all sides, and centrally located
before a curved porthole, through which I could make out the dark shapes of
trees in the park. Inlaid within the surface of the table were banks of
brightly-coloured lights and buttons. The creature began to explain something
to me, with some urgency. I could not make out its language, but I recognised
the mathematical symbols it was using. I
realised it was a series of formulae, though unfamiliar to me.’
Mr
Cleary fell silent and it took a moment for Dr Williams to break from the spell
that his story had cast.
‘Ah,
the tea,’ Dr Williams said, clearing his throat, as the orderly re-entered.
Closely
behind him, Dr McIntosh manoeuvred his bulk through the door. ‘Ah, good. So,
you two have got to know one another,’ he said, vigorously shaking their hands.
‘If I might interrupt, Dr McIntosh,’ the
orderly said. ‘It’s time for Mr Cleary’s walk.’
Mr
Cleary opened his mouth as if to object. There were tea-buns on the plate
beside the freshly-primed teapot and, for a moment, Dr Williams feared that Dr McIntosh
would invite the patient to stay.
‘Yes,
yes, can’t be disrupting routine, can we?’ said Dr McIntosh, his arm loosely
draped across Mr Cleary’s back, accompanying him out after the orderly. ‘Safest
time for you to be walking abroad, my good fellow, with these chaps on watch.’
Mr
Cleary shrugged off the doctor’s arm. ‘I’ll be having my notes back before I
leave.’
Dr
Williams shuffled the pages back together. Clasping them tightly to his chest,
Mr Cleary followed the orderly without a backward glance.
Dr
McIntosh, after filling his plate with bun, sat down Mr Cleary’s vacated chair.
‘So, then, what do you make of all that? Extraordinary, don’t you think?’
Dr
Williams sipped his tea thoughtfully before replying. ‘I really don’t know what
to make of it.’
‘Go
on. I know you London chaps are making strides with these sorts of cases. It’s
not everyday that colonials such as myself get to hear any of the latest
thinking.’
‘Well,
I think you dissemble good doctor. I’m quite sure you have read as much of the
new writings in philosophy as I have.
Why, I saw you had a copy of Schopenhauer in the original German on your
bookshelf. Well, all right then, if you
insist.’ He took a breath. ‘If we consider that our experience of the world, as
received through our senses, shapes our perception, then visions such as Mr Cleary’s
might be said to arise from a temporary disturbance of sensation, caused, for
example, by some passing illness. To some extent at least, his vision reminded
me of the common occurrence of hallucinations in cases of fever and the like.’
‘And
yet?’
‘Yes,
you’re right. There’s something that doesn’t fit. He is eccentric in his manner
and certainly excitable in temperament, but it is difficult to consider the man
a lunatic. He is essentially rational and his account of his experience is cogent
and lucid. But, at the same time—’ Dr Williams broke off and, rising to his
feet, returned his empty cup to the tray.
He walked back over to the window and looked down to the grounds, now
bathed in gold in the setting sun.
Dr
McIntosh came to stand beside him, munching on the last of his bun. ‘At the
same time, he’s suffering from considerable paranoia. He is convinced that the
American government—’
‘The
American government?’ Dr Williams’ eyes narrowed. ‘Now, he really must have
lost his reason.’
‘No,
no,’ said Dr McIntosh smiling. ‘There’s a lot of interest in the idea of
developing some kind of machine that can fly. He did indeed take his designs to New York to
show the American government officials there shortly after the events he
described. However, he refused to leave the material with them so they dismissed
him out of hand. He ended up on the streets and it was only through the good
offices of his friends and workmates in the Parramatta office that the funds
were raised to bring him back. He was clearly unfit for work by then, I
convinced him to come here. But governments are interested in flying machines,
you know. The military advantages are obvious. Why, even my own scientific
dabbling in that direction elicited a letter of enquiry from the British
colonial office.’
‘What?
Were they telling you that designing a flying machine wasn’t what they were
paying you a stipend for?’ Dr Williams’ lips twitched.
Dr
McIntosh chuckled ruefully. ‘Well, yes. But it’s going to happen one day. My
own design used steam, but the thing that’s so interesting in the schematic
that our Mr Cleary has drawn up is that some kind of alternative propulsion was
involved.’
‘And
that is, what? You’ve seen the drawings?’
Dr
McIntosh fell silent.
‘Ah,
he doesn’t know or he won’t tell you.’
‘I’ve
seen his sketches but he won’t let them out of his sight. It took every ounce
of persuasion to convince him to leave his journal here for you to read. I
honestly don’t know what’s going on. These strange beings seemed to have
imparted something to him but whether he actually understands what they, or his
own mind, has told him, I don’t know.’
The
two doctors looked down to the garden as the orderlies rounded up the
straggling patients to bring them inside for the night. Finally, only Mr Cleary
was left as the indigo-blue of twilight infused the scene.
‘What’s
that?’ Dr Williams gasped.
Seeping
through the shadows, vapours of mist assembled into a long cylindrical rolling
cloud, too low to the earth to be of the natural world, and moving
independently of the light zephyr stirring the tree branches.
Dr
Williams couldn’t wrench his eyes away to gauge his colleague’s reaction but he
felt Dr McIntosh’s hand grab at his shoulder as if clinging to the physical
world.
The
tiny figure of Mr Cleary below stretched out its arms as the cloud, if cloud it
were, moved to engulf him.
The
two doctors stayed, transfixed, till darkness obscured the scene.
There
was a soft knock at the door.
‘Will
you be wanting to make the night-coach back into Sydney town, gentlemen?’ The
orderly enquired.
‘Yes,
yes,’ said Dr Williams. ‘Nothing else to be done here.’ He turned to his
colleague, ‘Dr McIntosh?’
‘No,
you’re right,’ said Dr McIntosh. ‘We’re all done here. Best to be off.’
Here’s another fascinating rabbit warren to explore in the
writing world. I’ve been to a couple of talks this year that have mentioned ekphrasis and I’m starting to get my
head around it. It’s traditionally a poetry term and the Poetry Foundation
explains it as:
‘… a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. A notable example is “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, in which the poet John Keats speculates on the identity of the lovers who appear to dance and play music, simultaneously frozen in time and in perpetual motion.” (Poetry Foundation)
For the latest Live Reading run by the Hunter Writers Centre, we were invited to respond to the artworks of James Drinkwater, showcased by the Newcastle Art Gallery. His vibrant paintings, sculpture and mixed media works prompted 25 writers to read out their ekphrastic responses to an enthusiastic audience. Most readings were poems but I was amongst several people who responded in prose.
The artwork that I responded to was titled ‘Surrender – a self portrait 2019’ and it was listed as a ‘mixed media assemblage’. For copyright reasons, I can’t show you a photo and its picture isn’t shown in the catalogue, but perhaps you’ll be sufficiently intrigued to get along to the exhibition (ends 11 August 2019). On the other hand, the following picture (by Mysticartdesign) is free to use so, while it looks NOTHING like Drinkwater’s artwork, it’ll give you a flavour of where my imagination flew. (Be warned – I may have been reading dystopic fiction!)
The Messenger
Novocastrians, I come with news from the Tableland. I know
from your good Leader that I am the first traveller who has made it past the
brigands that beset the road over Barrington to reach your coastal
commune.
My Leader has sent me to ask — nay, implore — you for your
help. He charges me to tell you of our troubles, and seek your aid. He is sure
that, once you learn of the situation, you can but send every able-bodied
fighter to join the massed army he is raising to fight the Threat.
But I go too fast, forgive me. My need is pressing and, in
my agitation, I have failed to undertake those observances as are right and
proper for one who stands before the Sacred Offerings. I do so now, in honour
of our forebears who fought, man and woman, boy and girl, to drive back those
who would try to wrest the last arable land from us. I give thanks to the
landmines that guarded our borders; I give thanks to the missiles that sent the
planes falling from the sky above; I give thanks to the shells that rained like
fire on their ships so that they could not breach our safe harbour. And more
than these, I honour the struggle of those who, faced with the choice of the
white flag of surrender or the black flag of death, picked up their bloody
shields, spears and axes and fought and died so that we, the children of their
children, could build anew. I pledge, with all here present, to continue our
quest to leave our dying Earth and to look to the stars.
We have all made these observances again and again since we
were children and so perhaps we could be forgiven if the words have grown
comfortable in the saying. Our forebears’ struggles seem but tales to tell
around the fire, now that we have food to roast on the spit and skins to keep
the winter chill from our bones. But the threat from the South is real. The ice
has reached the shire of Hornsby and the seas themselves start to heave with
sludge.
I see you shake your heads. What? You think I exaggerate? Port
Macquarie, the last stronghold of the North fell to the Threat barely a Moon
span ago. Only the Tableland stands between us and the destruction of all we
have fought for.
You keep your eyes fixed between your feet, sir. Perhaps you
think that you would do better to defend your own commune rather than risk
leaving it undefended? But think of the Sacred Offerings. Think of the lessons
it teaches us. Only by uniting will we have sufficient force to successfully
hold our ground and complete our quest.
Yes, I swear to you, the Golden Galaxy Voyager is nearing
completion. Only one more section is needed. We are nearly to the top of the
stairs to the stars. Would you have your children’s children say, as they
shiver in their lonely ice caves, ‘if only’?
No. I see it in your eyes. No. A thousand times no. There
will be no ‘if only’. We will not wave the white flag of surrender. We will
fight, together, for the stars.
There are many wonderful resources that explore the interrelationship between character development in writing and plot/structure. For example, in his video essays on ‘Anatomy of Chaos’, Adam Skelter suggests that the character’s emotional state (positive or negative) as they enter the scene should have changed through the scene so that their emotional state is substantially different. The way in which that change occurs is driven by the choices they make (e.g. due to external events, internal worldview, their goal), i.e. driven by their character.
In my writing group, we were given the challenge of writing a scene in which the character undergoes a significant change (change being the plot driver). So, just for fun, here’s my response to the exercise.
The library was quiet: too quiet, for Elsie’s liking. She enjoyed
the noise of the children at the story-telling group and the chatter of the
book club ladies as she moved about, shelving books. But now it was seven
o’clock and she was the staff member tasked with the responsibility of locking
up.
She fingered the keys nervously in her pocket.
‘First time for everything,’ Mrs Grimes had said. ‘Time you
took some responsibility.’
It was ridiculous to fear undertaking such a mundane task.
But now, as she turned out each bank of overhead lights, moving her way back
through the library, she found she was holding her breath. She scurried down
the darkening avenues of shelving.
Only one more bank to do — but it was a two-way switch, one
at top of the stairs to the stacks, its twin at the bottom in the gloom.
She clutched the keys tightly, screwing up her courage. One
step and then the next. Could she just leave that one? No one would notice.
But she knew she must. Mrs Grimes would know. The woman had
all-seeing eyes that spotted broken spines and turned-down page corners before
the reader had even pushed their book down the return chute.
She snaked her hand around the door groping for the top
switch.
But the light was already off.
Relief flooded her. She didn’t have to go down those stairs.
She began to withdraw her hand but found she couldn’t. Cold
bony fingers gripped her wrist, drawing her into the musty void.
‘Alison Ferguson’s Home Visit is a slick horror story, cleverly disguised by the banal language of bureaucracy…’
Or so say the judges of the 2019 Newcastle Short Story Awards in their introduction to the anthology put out by the Hunter Writers Centre. My story is titled, ‘Home Visit’, and it was awarded one of the ‘Local Awards’ for the Hunter area. Very excited about it all – by the sound of the comment, all those years of working in bureaucratic institutions paid off!
My ‘sci-fi-lite’ novel, Grey Nomad, was shortlisted on 29 April for the inaugural 2019 Fantastic Prize (Brio Books) – one of only six shortlisted out of 80 entries. (See my post from 25 February this year for a snapshot of what it’s about!)
This time last year, the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (in concert with the Fellowship of Australian Writers, NSW) had declared ‘positive ageing‘ to be the theme for their 2018 Seniors Card Short Story Competition. As a FAWNSW member and a card-carrying Senior, I gave it a shot, and the following story made the ‘Top 100’ list and went into their 2018 anthology (available in hard copy from NSW local libraries, or you can download it in pdf from here).
The Upside of Funerals (a short story)
Ignoring Mitch’s quick flinch, Sarah pressed her powdered cheek against
his. ‘So sad it’s taken an occasion such as this to see you again.’
It was nice to see that my old friends had stayed true to their roots.
Sarah’s makeup had always been immaculate, even in those days of kaftans and
sandals. Back then, Mitch’s diatribes on the bullshit pretensions of the socially
mobile had been legendary. Today, however, he merely smiled thinly, restraining
himself.
They stood in the rose garden of the crematorium grounds, looking at the
other mourners as they assembled. Each of the new arrivals tried to disguise
their shock as each recognised another here and there, through the veil of
years masking their old friends’ faces. There wasn’t to be a funeral ceremony
but, after scattering the ashes, there would be a wake in the pub nearby.
Later, there’d be plenty of time for them to catch up. Now, greetings were
shared guiltily, as if it were disrespectful given the occasion.
Mitch looked like
he’d been uncertain what to wear for a non-funeral. Being middle-aged hadn’t
stopped him from wearing jeans, but he’d selected his black ones and thrown on
a dark brown leather jacket. It looked like the same one I’d clutched as his
pillion passenger along icy winter roads when we were young and foolish. I
never expected Mitch to make it past twenty, yet there he was, blinking in the
sunlight, as if surprised to find himself still here.
Sarah’s ex-husband
was wearing a sharp suit, the backs of his trouser legs shiny with wear. Paul
had been her high-school sweetheart and their romance survived their university
years, only to falter with the arrival of children. By the look of his suit,
Paul had come out the worst from their divorce settlement.
It was forty or more years since I’d seen any of them. There was Jack,
with his new partner. The thin brittle wife I’d known had been replaced years
before. The drunken intimacy of a night best forgotten lay between us. And
there was Geoff, his bulk looming even larger, shuffling about, his
characteristic gait now age-appropriate. And Lauren, affecting imperturbability
as always, intoned the eulogy that I didn’t want to hear. At least Cathy seemed
to be enjoying herself. She surveyed the small group, her ice-sharp eyes noting
all and her lips curling back with knowing appreciation of the absurdity of it
all.
Mitch opened the tightly-sealed urn and tipped it through the thorns
onto the petalled rose bed.
The smell was disconcertingly redolent of a barbeque. It made me think
of that time we’d piled into the Kombie and headed out to the farmhouse of a
friend of someone who none of us knew. We’d sat through the night drinking
cheap flagon wine and smoking weed till dawn greyed the magic of the night into
ash.
Here, surrounded
by manicured lawns, there was something in the way they stood together,
thinking about our fragile short lives that made sense of the daily struggle.
The sound of soft guitar filtered amongst us. Mitch had tied his hair back, and
begun to pick out sad notes on his acoustic guitar. It was good to hear his
music again.
When he stopped,
there were the sounds of throats being cleared and noses blown.
‘Coming to the
pub?’ Paul asked Sarah.
She looked
grateful to be asked.
‘You look like you
could do with a drop of something,’ Geoff said, giving Lauren a bear hug.
He was probably
avoiding commenting on her eulogy but she looked like the embrace was enough.
I watched them
begin to leave, some headed to the pub, others back to their busy lives.
My ashes settled into the earth.
They, each a fragment of a once-shared friendship, were now scattering
again into the air, swirling together for a moment in configurations of
goodbyes, as if reluctant yet pleased in the end to leave.
I could not follow, but it had been good to see them all for one last
time.
They each hoped to see one another again, yet not on an occasion such as
this.
THE END
_____________
Hope you liked it! And if you’re feeling inspired to write then, the Department of Family and Community Services has recently announced the 2019 theme: ‘Love your Life’. They’re a relentlessly cheerful bunch, aren’t they?)
This is where I come clean. Last month, I posted a minor rant about my growing irritation with quirky protagonists who achieve the astonishing feat of being both older and yet still having the potential of a character arc. My thoughts were, I confess, prompted by my own world-building for a sci-fi-lite novella I was developing through November. (I was participating in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month for the second time.)
Here’s the synopsis of my
work-in-progress.
Grey
Nomad
(Courtesy of NASA – public domain)
Alien spaceships from the planet Liser have landed in every major country on Earth. Joyce convinces her staid husband to divert from their annual caravan holiday itinerary to brave the queues of tourists to see the spaceship in Canberra. Unexpectedly, the Liseran spaceship does an emergency take-off to evade imminent attack by spaceships of their long-standing enemy, the Thulians. Joyce and JT, an avid trekkie, are the only tourists left on board with the human security team in a spaceship filled with angry aliens hurtling toward a space war.
Surviving
an alien war won’t just demand that Joyce master telepathy, it will also call
upon all her experience from her years with the Country Women’s Association.
My own journey in writing
this piece is proving to be a lot of fun and, so far, Joyce is neither quirky
nor quaint—but she does have dodgy knees.
I blame book clubs. If you belong to a library-run book club, you may have noticed a predilection for your reading list to comprise novels with older protagonists. The age range for ‘older’ can be anything from 50 to 80 or more, which is frightening from wherever you are standing on the timeline. These characters are considered remarkable by the miracle of being both older and yet interested and active participants in the world around them. The protagonists are (pick as many as apply):
Feisty
Quirky
Characters
(as in ‘she’s a real character’)
Eccentric
Outspoken
(but with a timid sidekick)
Timid
(but with an outspoken sidekick)
And, almost universally,
Stuck
in their ways (but will become adventurous by the end).
This is not to say that such books don’t make an
entertaining read. They are a pleasant way to spend an effortless afternoon.
Amongst my fellow book club members, the consensus ratings of these books were
3/5. Such books are usually well-written and well-edited to achieve that magic
page turning quality. However, it’s the underlying characterisation of age that
strikes me as open to question.
Here’s a summary of 2018’s teeth-gritting reading, including their publishers’ blurbs (in no particular order):
Hester and Harriet by Hilary Spiers (2015, Allen & Unwin) – genre mystery/’domestic fiction’
‘Hold on to
your tea cups – you’re about to fall head over heels for Hester and Harriet,
whose quiet and ordered Christmas celebrations are turned upside down with the
arrival of their runaway teenage nephew and a young refugee woman and her baby.’
It wasn’t
until I was about half-way into this book that I realised the ‘elderly’ sisters
were in their early 60s.
‘Gwen
Hill has lived on Green Valley Avenue all her adult life. Here she brought her
babies home, nurtured her garden and shared life’s ups and downs with her best
friend and neighbour, Babs. So when Babs dies and the house next door is sold,
Gwen wonders how the new family will settle into the quiet life of this cosy
community. …Soon the neighbours are in an escalating battle that becomes about
more than just council approvals, and boundaries aren’t the only things at
stake.’
Jaffe teeters between a savage and
insightful recognition of the realities of ageing (for example, the care of a
dementing husband) and satirical farce as events compound as the older
characters behave in increasingly irrational ways.
‘At
seven years old, Millie Bird realises that everything is dying around her. She
wasn’t to know that after she had recorded twenty-seven assorted creatures in
her Book of Dead Things her dad would be a Dead Thing, too. Agatha Pantha
is eighty-two and has not left her house since her husband died. She sits
behind her front window, hidden by the curtains and ivy, and shouts at
passers-by, roaring her anger at complete strangers. Until the day Agatha spies
a young girl across the street. Karl the Touch Typist is eighty-seven when
his son kisses him on the cheek before leaving him at the nursing home. As he
watches his son leave, Karl has a moment of clarity. He escapes the home and
takes off in search of something different. Three lost people needing to
be found. But they don’t know it yet. Millie, Agatha and Karl are about to
break the rules and discover what living is all about.’
This book distinguishes itself from the others by
attempting to embrace the sexuality of the older person. However, when Agatha
and Karl fall to their knees and make passionate love in the sandy desert, our
book club members were unanimous in shrieking: not on the ground!!
‘The
good old ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their town
beautiful. The Darling Dahlias garden club is off to a good start until rumors
of trouble at a bank, an escaped convict, and a ghost digging around their tree
surface. If anyone can get to the root of these mysteries, it’s the Darling
Dahlias.’
Be warned – it’s a
series.
This tendency to view older people as ‘cute’ or ‘dear things’ is the reverse side to the more serious ageist coin where older people are absent, invisible, or fragile/disabled/unwell/burdensome. There has been academic scholarship and debate exploring the perpetuation of ageist stereotypes in literature that is highly relevant to the dark side of this issue. I’d suggest that the lighter side is potentially just as damaging.
Looking at the novels I have endured this year in my book club, I have developed a maxim:
“The younger the author, the quainter the older protagonist.”
The portrayal of older protagonists by older authors is strikingly different. For example, this year we also read 86-year-old John Le Carré’s brilliant return to the world of Smiley and Guillam, ‘A Legacy of Spies (2018, Penguin).
Peter Guillam may be getting hard-of-hearing and he’s not above exploiting perceptions of failing aged memory, but he remains as sharp as his mentor.
If I’m fortunate enough
to live as long as Le Carré, I’d love to read the novels that quaint-ifiers write in twenty
or more years’ time and see if their characterisation of their protagonists has
changed.
Like many aspiring writers, I’ve been busily entering my writing into competitions over the last couple of years. There are pros and cons, of course, with some arguing that it’s a good way to build your reputation as a writer (if you win) and to develop your skills (even if you don’t). While I agree with both these arguments, for me there are even more practical reasons to enter.
A focus for my writing
The focus of a particular competition allows me to minimise the distractions of another idea or another story. Such distractions look much easier to write at the very same moment that the work in-hand starts getting harder. With the competition in sight, I can tell myself ‘later’.
A deadline
There’s nothing like a deadline to make you finish something. Inevitably, I can see ways to improve what I’ve written in the minutes, hours, days after submitting it.However, then I console myself with the thought that just means it’ll be available for revision on another occasion.
And, drum roll . . .
In 2017, I submitted work to two local competitions without success. But in 2018, I ramped up my productivity and submitted to five national competitions and one international competition.
Holding my copy of Seniors’ Stories, Volume 4
One of these, the Seniors Card Short Story Competition, doesn’t declare a winner, but they do publish the top 100 in book—and in 2018,my story ‘The Upside of Funerals’ made it into the book. As a government-sponsored competition, they make a lovely fuss so, with the other senior writers, I got to have lunch at NSW Parliament House in Sydney, listen to speeches and have my hand shaken with our local MP. The book, Seniors’ Stories Volume 4, will be available in hard copy in libraries through NSW and online.
2018 Scarlet Stiletto Awards (…must have missed the dress code memo!)
I also made it onto the Shortlist for the Scarlet Stiletto Awards for 2018. This is an exceptionally entertaining competition run by Sisters In Crime, to encourage and promote women crime writers. They also hosted a stellar Awards night in Melbourne at the Thornbury Theatre at which I received a ‘Special Commendation’ certificate for my story ‘Fragments of Meaning’. The nine top Award winners’ stories are available in ebook, ‘Scarlet Stiletto: The Tenth Cut’, from Clandestine Press.
It was a great way to finish the year and an inspiration to start thinking about what ‘crimes’ I can commit to paper next year!
