Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: Breton Dukes, author of the novel Party Boy.
The book I wish I’d written
The My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It’s so engrossing, so banal, so intellectually deep. He goes from flopping used nappies into rubbish bins, to writing penetrating essays on philosophy and art. His prose is at once beautiful and clichéd. He writes so accurately about being a father and a husband and a writer. I’ve never felt so seen by any book or series of books.
Everyone should read
All of Damien Wilkins’s novels. He writes with this hyper-controlled power. Beautiful sentences and transitions. A great executor of a story within a story. On the surface his work is ordinary and low on plot, but when you read deeply you are rewarded with this incredible sense of risk. Max Gate is a stone cold classic. And when he’s not writing about Hardy he writes about us, Kiwis, the people of Aotearoa. With insight, with humour, with great heart.
The book I want to be buried with
A book of the pictures my kids drew. Images of our dog, images of dragons, images of me and my wife. Images of demons and ice creams.
Utopia or dystopia
We are in a dystopian world – that’s how I see it. So all current fiction, or all good current fiction, has the whiff of the end of the world.
Fiction or non-fiction
Fiction, though I like listening to history podcasts. But reading, almost totally fiction. There’s just something so much more exciting about the freedom fiction affords.
It’s a crime against language to
Cliché is painful for me. Except when Knausgaard uses it. The writer’s job is to deliver writing that is fresh, tightly coiled and punchy. I find most genre fiction features stale sentences, stuff we’ve heard before. I stop reading if there are flat sentences.
The book I wish would be adapted for film or TV
Party Boy by me! Be tricky to pull off the flashbacks, but with a big juicy budget… and let’s go with Martin Henderson as Marco.
The book that made me cry
Delirious by Damien Wilkins. The bit where Pete and Mary send their son to the camp, even though they know he doesn’t want to go. At the time of reading my own son was having similar struggles with doing school athletics. I broke down reading Delirious many times. It’s a book that entered my brain and my heart. Only great writers – Munro, Tolstoy – can connect like that.
The book that made me laugh
As above. When the cops toot their horn and Pete flies off the handle because of their lack of empathy. We think, of course, of course the cop toots. Of course the parents of the dead child feel aggrieved. It’s the humanity – that’s where all the best humour resides, when something is so convincingly human, when something is so close to terror and pain.
The book I never admit I’ve read
I remember being embarrassed when a woman I was dating noted all the Ian Rankin books in my bookcase. I was living in Japan. Lonely doesn’t get close to describing my life there. The predictability of the Rebus books were a comfort.
Greatest New Zealand book
A Mistake, Carl Shuker; Delirious, Damien Wilkins; All This by Chance, Vincent O’Sullivan. These three men have shifted my inner writing landscape.
Greatest New Zealand writer
Vincent O’Sullivan. His story ‘The Boy, The Bridge, The River’ is an absolute classic. I was lucky to get to know Vincent for the few years before he died. He was so gentlemanly and supportive.
I usually took him date scones, but one time I brought a piece of carrot cake from a café for him. It hadn’t been mixed well and you could taste the raising agent. Instead of just leaving it uneaten or making a comment, he hid the remains of his slice behind his teacup so I wouldn’t be offended. Me! A beginner writer, lucky enough to be in the company of an absolute powerhouse. We never hugged when we parted. We shook hands, he’d say some words of encouragement.
The way he wrote about affairs, his humour, his ability to move through time and jump from one point-of-view to another… The other writers I admire are Wilkins, Shuker, Lawrence Patchett, Pip Adam… there are heaps.
Best thing about reading
Feeling seen by the writer. Reading about where you live. That’s why I love New Zealand books.
Best food memory from a book
From ‘Cathedral’ by Ray Carver. They sit down to this big meal with the blind man. “We dug in. We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow…” Probably my favourite Carver story.
His one about the birthday cake also features some supreme stuff where the bereaved couple eat warm rolls from the baker. Food is highly underrated as a device around which to build character, plot, drama.
Party Boy by Breton Dukes ($38, Te Herenga Waka University Press) is available to purchase from Unity Books.
