Tuesday, June 16: Surprise Witness
Stephen Ross is a crime and mystery writer and he lives in Hamilton, New Zealand. He has had two stories appear in EQMM, and he has two more coming. His first science fiction story is due to go to print later in the year, and a film adaptation of one of his unpublished short stories is currently in preproduction.
CRIME & MYSTERY WRITING IN NEW ZEALAND
A PERSONAL OBSERVATION
by Stephen Ross
New Zealand is at the foot of the South Pacific. We have a population of 4.3 million, we speak English, we spell colour with a u, and according to Mark Twain we are like Switzerland.
I’ve often heard it said we are good readers. I don’t know if this is true or merely something put about to make us feel good. I can, however, personally confirm that most of our bookstores have decent-sized crime and mystery sections, so those that read clearly have a taste for C & M.
But, here’s a curious thing: you won’t find ANY New Zealand authors in that crime and mystery section.
Bookstores have a strange habit of corralling local authors onto a separate shelf, usually at the back of the store, and all in together — crime next to romance next to historical next to literary.
I could write a 5000-word thesis on why they do this, but I’ll sum it up with one. Parochial.
And glancing at that segregated bookshelf today, in the largest bookstore in my town, I found only one novel (among a good two hundred) that would sit in the crime box — Craig Marriner’s Southern Style. Marriner is a type of Quentin Tarantino with a left-wing political bent.
Not one other book in the New Zealand section was even faintly of the C & M persuasion. Why is this? Frankly, because there have been sod-all crime and mystery writers in NZ. And why is that?
We don’t do genre in New Zealand.
I’m paraphrasing, but this was the response I got from an agent to a book I submitted a couple of years ago — a detective novel. He would have been better served by saying: Your book is crap, Mr Ross, but that’s another story.
The pursuit of writing in this country has for the most part been viewed as academic and highbrow. It is a precious thing. It’s something that should only be discussed in hushed tones, by the duly anointed, while miniature bells are chimed.
The pursuit of movie making used to be the same, until Peter Jackson came along, barefoot and beard, and showed everyone that it was actually possible to make movies that are entertaining, profitable, and widely appealing.
So maybe that’s all we’re waiting for? An iconoclast.
It nearly happened twenty years ago, with the publication of Alan Duff’s Once Were Warriors — a gritty novel of crime in the suburbs.
It was a local best seller, made into a movie, and people still talk about it. The critics panned it. It’s also one of the few local books I’ve ever seen in a bookstore in another country (Hugendubel, Frankfurt).
And it’s not like New Zealand never had a precedent for crime and mystery. Ngaio Marsh (pronounced NIGH-oh) was a New Zealander. She was a contemporary of Agatha Christie and she wrote 32 detective novels; she had several short stories printed in EQMM and AHMM (if any other New Zealanders have, I’d love to know who they are); and the Mystery Writers of America made her a Grand Master.
What more of a precedent should one want? It works for me.
Sadly, I wasn’t aware of her existence until I was in my teens. We had several Aunty Agathas on the family bookshelf, and we had Earle Stanley Gardner (The Case of the Curious Bride was quite possibly the first crime novel I ever read, straight after Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven stories). But we had no Ngaio Marsh.
The local writer we were taught about in school was Katherine Mansfield — a competent writer, to be sure, but not of C & M.
There is an annual short story competition here: the Katherine Mansfield Award. I glance at the winning entries each year. I find the usual twee stories … coloured balloons drifting across deserted beaches while sad men ponder their wives’ feet.
There is no Ngaio Marsh award.
After Dame Ngaio, I should mention Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Morrieson wrote 4 books between 1963 and 1976. Creepy, gothic, and blackly humoured. His books were the same. He was New Zealand’s Stephen King, and he wrote the best opening line in the country’s canon: “The same week our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut.”
Morrieson was another writer they didn’t tell us about in high school (or at university). And he only wrote 4 books because the critics loathed him, and he succumbed to depression. And then he died.
One thing they did tell us was that a prevalent theme in New Zealand literature is “man alone”.
Hemingway, in To Have and Have Not, wrote “a man alone ain’t got no bloody fucking chance”. John Mulgan took that for the title and theme of his 1930s book Man Alone — Independent English bloke arrives in Auckland during the depression. He has bitter memories of WW1 trenches. Gets into trouble. Has affair with boss’s wife. Boss is killed….
It sounds like noir, and it almost is. Man Alone became a working model for many NZ writers, and it hugely influenced our film industry (and, to some degree, the fine arts community).
So, there has been a reasonable chunk of crime going on in our books over the years. But it has been more novels with aspects of crime, rather than crime novels. And Marsh and Morrieson were almost the only ones who added mystery to the mix, and were certainly the only ones with which you would have used the term ‘genre’.
But, things change, albeit at a glacial pace. We do glaciers here — they’re rather scenic and spectacular. In recent years (as in, since the turn of the century), series detectives and crime novels proper have begun to appear. And the critics (some of them, at least) have been favourable.
Here are some current authors:
Andrea Jutson, who has a line in supernatural murder mysteries: Senseless, Darkness Looking Back.
Yvonne Eve Walus: Murder at Work, Murder at Play. She has appeared at least twice (as far as I know) in British CWA anthologies.
Vanda Symon, who has a series detective Sam Shephard: Overkill, The Ringmaster.
Paul Cleave, a native of Christchurch (same as Dame Ngaio), and is of the Ian Rankin, hard-as-nails, school. Interestingly, his books: The Cleaner, The Killing Hour, Cemetery Lake, do better business in Germany than here. I’ve heard The Cleaner was second only to Harry Potter in the year it came out. Not surprisingly, a lot of NZ crime writers have followed suit of late and are in translation in Germany. Das ist gut, nicht war?
And the future? Well, as Joe Strummer once wrote, that is unwritten.
“coloured balloons drifting across deserted beaches while sad men ponder their wives’ feet.” That’s just wonderful. Thank you.
Very interesting column. From the end it sounds like you have, what, at least five genre writers there now. You can form an organization and give each other awards. Good publicity.
Seriously, NZ is one of those fascinating places I will probably never get to. Thanks for telling us a little about it.
As Rob touches upon, NZ has been high on my list of places to visit, partly due to photos of the beautiful scenery and partly due to Ngaio Marsh.
Of Christie’s contemporaries in style and era, I rated Ngaio Marsh second only to Christie. I found her in my aunt’s collection when I was a kid. (And thinks for reminding me once again the G and A in her first name are silent.)
The real crime in New Zealand is not recognizing their own great crime writers. No (wo)man is a prophet in her/his own land, but I like Rob’s idea of the lot of you forming a MWZ. Will you let us join?
Rob, you’re welcome. Thanks for inviting me!
Leigh, the membership cards are in the post. They’ll be on Velma’s desk by the weekend.
I’ve often heard that you’re never a hero in your home town but this is the first I knew it was true of an entire country. Now I’m wondering about Scott Dixon. Is it the same with race drivers? Sounds like all that is changing for the better. Interesting information.
Stephen, the closest I’ve come to NZ were business trips to Manila and Hong Kong, which aren’t really all that close. I hope one day to visit there — like many of us, I’ve always been fascinated by it. And yes, it does sound as if everything’s changing for the better.
Thanks for an interesting column.
I’ve spent the loveliest two months of my life in NZ, and the visits inspired the development of my own MS’s protagonist. She is straight off her father’s NZ farm, now living – natch – right here in the good old USA. I suppose it could be said that I’ve stolen her from you guys. But look, if you’re not doing much with the genre anyway, seems to me that your citizens are fair game!
To the list of New Zealand mystery writers, I would like to add my friend Joan Druett, who writes an historical maritime series featuring Wiki Coffin, a half-Maori sailor in the U.S. Navy during the famous Wilkes Expedition (1838-1842).
Excellent article. Let me second JLW’s recommendation of Joan Druett’s outstanding Wiki Coffin series. Visiting Christchurch a few years ago, I walked into a bookstore to see what they had on hand by Ngaio Marsh and was shocked to find zilch. On a visit to Australia a couple years later, I found a similar slighting of mystery fiction on the Sydney Writers Walk. Many of those honored were British writers, including Conan Doyle, with only slight Down Under connections. Of actual Australians, private-eye writer Peter Corris somehow made the cut, but other than that crime fiction writers were few and far between. No Fergus Hume, no A.E. Martin of Jennifer Rowe, and most astonishingly, no Arthur W. Upfield.
Dick, this country is sports mad. Scott Dixon makes the front page for just changing the way he ties his shoelaces. And yes, things are changing for the better.
John, you’re very welcome.
Lois, help yourself. By the way, toss a stone into any crowd anywhere in the world, and you’ll probably hit a Kiwi. The population here at home is 4.3 million, but I believe there are at least 2 million more living overseas. We love to travel. London and Australia used to be the principal destinations, but now we’re everywhere.
James, I’ve never read Joan Druett. Thanks for pointing her out to me.
Jon, thanks. I’ve only ever once (aside from second-hand book stores) seen Ngaio Marsh in a bookstore here – we had a Borders in Auckland for several years, and they had her, and a good selection of her works too. Sadly, they closed.
By the way, I’ve discovered they’ve opened a museum to Dame Ngaio down in Christchurch: http://www.ngaio-marsh.org.nz/
The museum looks great! I’m more impressed than ever. I hadn’t known she was a Shakespearean scholar nor an artist.
Indeed, Ngaio Marsh was in some respects better known here for her work in theatre, than her books. Her knighthood (damehood?) was principally for her contribution to the performing arts, or so I’ve always believed. Trivia of note: New Zealand actor Sam Neill (Ireland born, but grew up in Christchurch) got his start working with Dame Ngaio.
Hi Stephen,
Excellent blog! I had no idea this existed, but I was googling my own name to see if they’d posted my reviews on Scoop yet (nope), and came across it. Now I’ll be a regular visitor. It’s true, I got absolutely fed up with the lack of crime series and actual decent reads in NZ literature so decided to write my own. But they haven’t sold, alas – my publisher tells me people just don’t buy New Zealand fiction, especially the non-literary type. Now she tells me I’m facing never being published again unless I write something outside the crime fiction genre.
Thanks for this! I’m woefully clueless about the world of fiction in your country. I do have a copy of The Collected Short Fiction Of Ngaio Marsh (didn’t know she’d written short stories!) Well, if we in Wichita, Kansas can have a thriving mystery scene, so can New Zealand! More power to the MWZ! (By the way, guess where the conductor of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra is from?)
Hi Andrea. Your last couple of sentences are worrying, and I’m very sad to hear that news. But I am glad you found CB, and yes, CB is an excellent site! You are amongst friends. Genre is not a dirty word in this neighbourhood.
Hi Jeff. Like I say, Kiwis are everywhere. And I’m seriously giving thought to setting up the MWZ (or MWNZ?).
Hi Stephen. Thanks to you, I’m mentioned in the same article as Ngaio Marsh. You made my day!
Hi Andrea, sorry to hear about your books. Who’s your publisher?
Hi Yvonne, I’m glad to help make your day!
Great post Stephen. I just came across this (and realised you must be the Hamilton blogger Andrea Jutson mentioned to me earlier this week). I have been working on some things in terms of New Zealand crime and thriller writing, both in terms of writing feature stories and reviews for a number of newspapers, magazines and websites in NZ, Australia, and further abroad – and recently setting up a themed blog at http://kiwicrime.blogspot.com
I would love to have a chat sometime – I have been working on a couple of things you might like to involved with…
There is now a Ngaio Marsh Award!
Wohoo!