The new face of Kiwi crime writing
Interviewing new author Simon Snow is quite simply torturous. Not for all the normal reasons you understand, not because he's egotistical, and not because he's enigmatic. To the contrary in fact.
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No, it's torturous because Snow's first novel, Devil's Apple, is a thriller, a mystery, a whodunit, and only being half way through the book, I desperately want to blurt out: Who did it? Who killed her? Was it her father or the local bully? I want to pin him up against the wall, albeit over the phone, and interrogate him.
But, dear reader for your sake and mine, I refrain. Instead we skirt around the issue, treading carefully lest all be revealed, producing a sense of ambiguity and secrecy around the mystery itself.
And to my surprise it works.
In an ideal situation, an interviewer conducts an interview with all possible information about the subject at hand, but in the end what could have been a disadvantage, makes for a more interesting dialogue. Rather than following the obvious questioning path around plot and literary strategy, we are forced to talk about other things, about family and belonging, about country of choice versus country of birth. And perhaps in the process, a little bit of Simon Snow - the man, is revealed to me, as opposed to Simon Snow - the author.
Devil's Apple is set in the isolation of the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is the story of a young girl's brutal murder, and the ensuing fracas between the local cops and the "Coasters". There are good and bad elements on each side. Depending on their motives, each party struggles to bring the killer to light, or correspondingly cover their tracks.
The setting is all-important to the story; in some ways it enjoys the significance of a main character. Snow dedicates many words to describing the bush which swathes the land.
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"In another time it would be beautiful, an open grove of beeches where the ground was cushioned by green and amber moss. Lichen clung to gnarled roots and trunks, and crown fern held stiff coronets to the dappled light. In present circumstances, with grey mist obscuring all but the foreground, trees seemed to lean over him in grim silence as if holding their breath," he writes.
But as much as the land of the West Coast defines its inhabitants, they have a hardiness of spirit, a rough individuality, and a homespun hospitality which speaks for itself.
"Coasters will never leave a stranger to drink alone, but they saw that Todman's loneliness was a preferred condition and, in the tolerant way of the Coast, left him to his own devices," writes Snow.
It doesn't take a lot of guesswork to surmise that the author is both knowledgeable and passionate about the legendary West Coast.
However, Snow isn't a born and bred Coaster, nor does he even live there now. But, he confesses, to a certain point, it is still his turangawaewae, the land where he feels he most belongs.
"I've spent mush less time there than in other parts of the country, but I feel the West Coast is a place that some people instantly fall in love with as soon as they see it, and I was one of those people."
Snow was actually born in North London, but moved here as a boy.
"I'm proud to be a New Zealander. I don't think of myself as English at all. Although there are aspects of my whakapapa that are English, I'm much more of a Kiwi."
Snow currently resides in Geraldine, "a very pretty, little country town on the road to Fairlie, inland from Timaru," but he dreams one day of owning a house bus that he can take over to the West Coast for long spells. Apparently house buses are very popular on the West Coast.
The girl who is killed, Rainbow Starlight, is the daughter of hippies - environmentalists and alternative lifestylers. The sort of people you can imagine packing up home and taking to the open road in their house bus.
Snow holds an MA with honours in English literature and has worked off and on as a freelance feature writer. He has recently returned to teaching, but has at times worked as a slaughterman, a small-farmer, a bushman, a possum trapper, and a commercial fisherman. An unusual combination perhaps, but somehow when you talk to Snow it seems a natural fit.
Like his protagonist, George Todman, Snow is a blend of what on the surface appear to be opposites, yet put aside presumptions and you'll be surprised. While he finds his creative outlet in writing, Todman sings, and both could conduct themselves with equal ease in a cosmopolitan city or isolated bush.
Todman is a recluse, partly out of choice, partly out of necessity, and although Snow is obviously far from a loner (he speaks constantly, and lovingly of his four sons and wife Adelaide), by sheer nature of the craft, a writer must be able to work happily alone.
"There are a lot of aspects of Todman in my character, but I think I'm a different man from him in many ways. Although he's the sort of person I could have become if Adelaide and I had parted for any reason."
Todman has suffered a heartbreaking loss, and when we are first introduced to him he is a fully-fledged alcoholic, finding solace in the demon drink.
"He rolled to his knees, groaning, and levered himself to his feet. He stretched slowly, belly down on the edge of the table, and felt his eyes lurch dangerously against his forehead. Holding his head very still, he moved outside to the creek, sluiced his face and hair and came back inside gasping and blowing with a bottle of beer in his hand," writes Snow.
Snow describes so intimately and vividly an alcoholic's daily battle, that I'm driven to ask about his own drinking habits.
"I'm not an alcoholic, but I have known alcoholics. I would call myself an occasional social drinker."
Snow's wife played a crucial role in the formation of Devil's Apple, reading and critiquing it chapter by chapter, over the 18 months it took to write.
"It's quite a difficult position to be in if it's someone you love who's writing it. You're always conscious of how much it means to them," he admits.
At 55, Snow has always yearned to write a novel, but had only ever toyed with stories, never carrying them through to fruition.
"It has been a lifelong dream. I've always written and thought of myself as a writer, but it took me 30 years to actually show it to other people."
It was a murder mystery, pinched from Adelaide, which first inspired Snow to write Devil's Apple.
"I'd made up my mind I needed to write something serious and something other people might like to read. I happened to be reading a book by P D James at the time, and I thought, 'Yes, by God that's it. I can do something like this.' So I went on a reading binge of mysteries and crime and detective writers. I'd always read them, but I hadn't been a particularly dedicated fan until that point. I wanted to find out how they worked."
There is a huge market for thrillers and detective novels, but with a few notable exceptions, including Dame Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand has not been able to claim a strong crime writing tradition in recent years.
However, with a new book already in the pipelines, featuring the two same protagonists, it looks like Snow might happily be on something of a roll.
And dear reader, I'm proud to say, my suspicions about who really killed Rainbow, proved to be correct. And although I'm keeping Mum, I'd like to point out that I reached my conclusions through honest detective work, and a good dose of intuition - without an inkling from the author himself.
