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word with a writer “'The
place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations and
jungle, decay, corruption and the backwash of the empire, this gripping,
nuanced novel has a pitch-perfect ear for comedy and a sharp eye
for the tragedy of a world at the end of its tether,” a review
on the back page commented. Flipping through it randomly, I was
intrigued and made a mental note to read it sometime. The author
is a Sri Lankan living in Melbourne I noted in passing. Several
frantic days of calling academics, journalists and friends who may
know Michelle de Kretser pass. Finally I obtain her email address
and request an interview. Emails go back and forth and Michelle
finally agrees to let me interview her at home.On a chilly autumn
evening I set off for Michelle’s home, located in one of the
older quarters in Melbourne's inner city suburb of Richmond. The
street proves difficult to find in the rapidly fading evening light.
It's a narrow lane, lined with single storey cottages for the most
part. Even after seeing pictures of her in published articles, I am still struck by her slight, almost elfin form, when her partner Chris Andrews ushers me in. The quirky pig tails described by one reviewer as 'the funky hairstyle of a Japanese cartoon anime heroine' are gone, replaced by a more mature cropped bob, but her thin frame and elegant bearing still gives the appearance of a much younger person. Looking around the room, I see a compact, book-lined, academic abode where the emphasis is more on creature comfort than cutting edge style in decor. An antique side table that appears to be of Sri Lankan Dutch Burgher design sits in one corner. An ageing, box-style television hides in another. Her two dogs — Gus, an ageing English setter cross who sports a warm blanket to ward off the winter chill, and Oliver, a much younger, hyperactive Border Collie cross — roam freely as we talk. This is definitely not one of those houses where a gleaming, flat screen television occupies pride of place in the living room. No, it is a house of books and squashy sofas — there's little doubt that they love the written word. The cosiness reminds me of Dutch Burgher homes back in Sri Lanka full of knicknacks collected over a lifetime. “Yes, people have told me it resembles a Sri Lankan house,” she agrees. Michelle was fourteen when her family migrated to Australia. Her late father was a well-known judge back home. This together with her love of crime fiction, particularly the work of Agathie Christie, the unquestionable queen of the 'whodunnit', seems to inspire her own writing. In her both books, namely 'The Rose Grower' and 'The Hamilton Case', crime and legal affairs play a major role. After completing high school, Michelle pursued her love of languages by undertaking a degree in French at Melbourne University. Subsequently, a teaching opportunity came up in Montpellier in south-central France. “I had never been to France but had studied their literature and language for so long,” she says. The one-year teaching position led to a master’s degree at the prestigious Sorbonne University and she eventually spent five years in France. Michelle also undertook a Ph.D in English at Melbourne University when she returned to Australia but admitts that she isn't much of a scholar. Then in 1988, a vacancy for an editor had come up at the Lonely Planet, the world famous publisher of travel literature. “I didn't love, love, love Lonely Planet, I just got a job there,” she says and confesses, “I would have preferred to have been editing fiction” instead of an endless stream of guidebooks. Nevertheless she admits to having a good run at Lonely Planet and spent over ten years with the company. In
late 1991, Lonely Planet opened an office in France and Michelle
was asked to go and set it up. She remained there until mid-1993.
First
seed of a novel This area of France is steeped in medieval architecture and far removed from the cosmopolitan lifestyle of Paris. “'We were thinking what must have been this like two hundred years ago if it is like this now,” but while walking she never thought, “oh, I'm going to write a book about this one day”. At the time, she had taken a year's leave from the Lonely Planet hoping to spend her new free time pottering around the house, cooking, gardening and walking the dogs. Finding that she had a lot of spare time, Michelle then started writing as a discipline, “just to fill the time really”. This vague approach has not diminished the quality of 'The Rose Grower'. A detailed study of the French Revolution, its effect on rural aristocratic life, the European passion for roses and even the art of French cuisine has been delved into. “You kind of research as you go along,” she says, glossing over the hard work she must have put into the book. Her love of satire comes out well in the novel; one chapter opens with this dramatic sentence: “On the night Issabelle goes to her pharmacist's kisses the killings take place.” The novel received admiring reviews in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In Australia it appealed largely to romantic fiction readers but I wonder whether they were missing the point, there is much more to the book than a love story. Four years later in 2003, her second novel 'The Hamilton Case' was published. It is set on the other side of the world in her native Sri Lanka and revolves around a highly controversial murder trial that becomes the bane of the main character, Sam Obeysekera's life. On the surface the two books appear to be different. What does the French Revolution have in common with Ceylon under British colonial rule? “I hope I'm not the kind of writer who writes the same thing all the time,” Michelle replies in answer to this. Shifting on a cushioned stool designed to support her recently injured back, she elaborates. Although the novels deal with different places and eras, they are both about individuals “whose lives are kind of determined by the historical moment in which they're born”. The characters come to life against the backdrop of tumultous times. The judiciary and dogs crop up in both novels. Her father wrote a real life crime story called 'The Pope Murder Case' in 1942. It too deals with the murder of an Engishman during the British rule of Ceylon. While she had read this when she was ten and it probably remained in her mind at some subconscious level, it was only after completing 'The Hamilton Case' that she saw her father's book again. Bizarrely it was at the British Library while doing some background research. She seems preoccupied by the darker side of life and says, “my memories of Sri Lanka are bound up with reading this kind of novel”. No doubt this was fuelled by her enthusiasm for Agatha Christies but she also says that “there's a whole kind of genre of murder mysteries set in Malaya”, that are still available. It is from this setting of sub tropical decay that she drew ideas for the second book. Researching for this book was much easier than for her first one as she could draw from her own childhood memories of the island and the recollections of her family. Given the wealth of information about Sri lanka that is present throughout the novel, it surprised me that she had only returned there twice after migrating to Australia. Meticulous proofreading was, however, undertaken as she worried that, “there might have been something that everyone in Sri Lanka would look at and say that is wrong”. The completed draft was sent to a professor of English in Sri Lanka to check for any errors before being published. A few historical facts about incidents relating to British occupation were disputed and discarded along the way. Obviously, becoming a writer has not meant that she left the editor in her behind when she resigned from the Lonely Planet. Her dry wit also provides a subtle commentary on colonial Ceylonese rivalries throughout the story: the main character Sam makes this wicked observation about Jaya his hated brother-in-law at one point, “drops of water glistened on his matted torso and quivered in the black fur along his arms. One longed to inquire if he had had an accident with a bottle of hair restorer.” Michelle
and Michael “With
Michael Ondaatje, he's such a fantastic writer, I was worried about
reading it and feeling, oh, there's nothing that I can say,”
she admits. But in retrospect she thinks that this probably was
an unecessary precaution as each of those books dealt with a completely
different aspect of Sri Lankan life. Numerous articles and reviews appeared in Australian newspapers about her work. In the United States, book retail giant Barnes and Noble used her book on their Discovery programme which gives publicity to writers “who aren't well established in America” as Michelle puts it. It was then shortlisted for several other prizes around the world and went on to win the British Encore award for the best second novel written by an author. Michelle seems quite unaffected by these awards and doesn't even mention them until I bring them up. Even then all she concedes is, “oh, it was very exciting”. The most recent award to be received is of course the earlier mentioned Tasmania Prize. Right now she's off to provincial France again for yet another walking tour with Chris. As inspiration for another book perhaps? “Oh, I'm trying to write...see how it goes,” she replies softly. |
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