April 2011 1. Steve Capelin reflects on the floods 2. Cory Taylor author of Me and Mr Booker 3. Interview with debut author Christopher Currie 4. Krissy Kneen’s waterlogged motorcycle adventure 5. Latest books and events. 193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
2011 BRISBANE FLOODS EDITION A special edition of the Avid Reader Magazine to remember the Brisbane floods, the friends and strangers who helped West End recover from our losses and the ongoing struggle of the people of Brisbane. For all who helped: our heartfelt thanks. For all who suffered: our deepest sympathies. Underground Angel © Steve Capelin A shaft of sunlight luminous and beatific Streams from the heavens through a concrete skylight Illuminating a dark underground cavern. A scene from a medieval Christian painting Mary at the foot of the cross Christ’s ascension into heaven. A muscled young man Tattoo of a dragon on one shoulder A floral tribute to a former lover on the other Framed by a blue navvy’s singlet Stretched across his glowing chest. He is bent over a throbbing pump Diesel fumes spewing into the dark basement. Thighs painted with river mud A living David A tribute to Michelangelo. He works unaware of his holy status Intent only on his task. Muck out this putrid mess before sundown. It’s a scene watched in silence By a small group of worshippers Women mainly, entranced by this heavenly angel A gift from god on this miserable day In the midst of this devastating flood. His straining back his rippling arms Wrestle his equipment into its final spot And he delivers on his promise. Only then does he look up To see the shy smiles of a Greek chorus of mothers and daughters as the sun sinks and the halo remains forever.
Message From The Premier of Queensland
For so many Queenslanders this past summer is unforgettable for both the worst and the best of reasons. The worst of summer was the horrendous loss of lives: the floods and cyclones left 37 Queenslanders dead. Each of those people was a brother or a sister, a son or daughter, a husband or wife, partner, aunt or uncle or grandparent. Each of those people was a friend, a community member, a neighbour. We weep for those lives, some of them tragically short. The awesome floods overwhelmed the towns and cities of South East, South West and Central Queensland. In their wake, they left 5488 houses inundated, rendering many of them unliveable. In addition 3572 businesses were inundated and some of them will not reopen. The best of the summer were the inspiring stories of heroism, selflessness, the Queensland heart and spirit. These stories reverberated around our nation and around the world. And they will reverberate in our history. Certain images of the devastating floods and of Tropical Cyclone Yasi’s aftermath will, I am sure, stay with us forever. I know they will with me. Images, for example of our emergency chopper pilots who battled impossible, dangerous conditions to rescue from their rooftops people who would otherwise surely have perished.
Doug and Peter were not ordered to take action; they saw a need, they saw the danger, they responded. As did the thousands of volunteers who rose across Queensland to clean and repair in every town and city as floods and cyclones receded. They came in their hundreds to little towns like Condamine and Theodore to work alongside locals. They came in their thousands to the streets of suburban Brisbane and Ipswich to help people they did not even know. They came in their thousands to the streets of cyclone ravaged North Queensland, where they worked shoulder to shoulder to help restore their fellow Queenslander’s lives. And just as we all shared in moments of fear and fragility, we then shared in a moment of uplifting inspiration. We watched in awe as a powerful force of humanity marched through filthy streets and mopped and shovelled and hauled garbage away for days on end. We marvelled at the kindness of strangers and we gave thanks to those who were unable to shovel or mop, but who brought cold drinks and sandwiches and homemade cakes to those who could. And we learnt in the best way possible that it’s better to give than receive. Just as these disasters wrecked our communities, they strengthened us as they brought us together and forged new bonds of friendship.
On one night, emergency helicopter crews rescued 43 people in winch rescues in heavy rain and dark conditions, an exercise unprecedented in Australian history. Then there were the crews who saved 48 lives in swift water rescues in a matter of hours that terrible afternoon in Toowoomba, again an exercise without precedent. And rescue workers and army crews who spent awful days searching an area of some 663 square kilometres for those missing.
In our beloved West End, businesses the length of Boundary Street sandbagged and the distinct sound of helicopters buzzed constantly overhead.
And let’s not forget our have-a-go heroes, like the tugboat skippers Doug Hislop and Peter Fenton whose 40-year old vessel, Mavis, became the little tug that could. At the height of the Brisbane flood on January 13 when a 300 metre, 1000 tonne section of the river walkway had broken loose and threatened to hurtle toward the Gateway Bridge, this pair manoeuvred Mavis so it missed this vital arterial and then shepherded it downstream out of harm’s way.
I joined the the local contingent of the mud army, many donning wellies usually reserved for the Woodford Folk Festival, to literally muck in and lend a hand to our neighbours, perhaps once strangers, now mates all.
West Enders may have been temporarily down during the floods but they were never out, their indomitable spirit and humour evident when quick thinking patrons at the Boundary Hotel decided the sand bags could double as pretty comfy seats.
In my South Brisbane electorate and throughout this great State, as the flood of misery was supplanted by a flood of support and random acts of kindness, I can honestly say I have never been prouder to be a Queenslander.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Staff picks
Anna Hood
One Foot in Eden Ron Rash PB $29.95
Everywhere I travelled I saw people looking out for each other. Even those whose own homes had gone under were managing to check on and to organise help for others. To my mind there could be no better definition of community than these selfess acts performed in the midst of crisis. Every day I was inspired by, and drew strength from, the people on the frontline. Whether battling the elements to perform rescues, heading out in a tinnie to check on neighbours in far-flung properties, or working around the clock to monitor fast-changing road and river conditions and provide us with life-saving information, there were countless thousands of Queenslanders, many of them volunteers. Now that we have had time to take stock and reflect on what we have been through, I think it’s a terrific idea that we record our experiences, that we write down our stories to share with others in our community. No doubt those accounts will run the gamut from heartbreak to healing. And who better to collect and publish those stories than Avid Reader. Good on you Avid Reader, your loyal staff and supporters for taking on the important task of bearing witness to what is a rich and significant local history. I very much look forward to reading these personal accounts of an unforgettable summer.
Anna Bligh MP PREMIER OF QUEENSLAND
1951, South Carolina. A war veteran has gone missing and the sheriff has no witnesses and no leads except the victim’s mother who is accusing her young neighbour of murder. Nobody is acting suspicious and the Sheriff has quite a difficult task ahead of him. Each of the five chapters explores the many facets of the crime through the eyes of: The High Sheriff, The Wife, The Husband, The Son and The Deputy. What makes this novel special is how it is beautifully constructed by adding layers of depth and understanding to what could be seen as an unspeakable act or an only option, depending on who is talking. One of Avid’s current favourite authors, Chris Womersley, describes it as ‘A wonderfully gritty, tangled novel that drags the reader deep into the undertow of a dreadful crime’, and I couldn’t agree more. Even though it’s a relatively short book (197 pages) it’s one of those powerful, atmospheric reads that stays with you long after you finish it. Read it if you enjoy your books gritty, gripping and compelling, like Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell or Julius Winsom by Gerard Donovan.
Christopher Currie
The Fates Will Find Their Way Hannah Pittard PB $29.95 Lost amongst the huge big-name releases of April is this brilliant and assured debut novel. Heavily reminscent of The Virgin Suicides, the story expands out from the disappearance of 16 year-old Nora Lindell, and is told from the perspective of the neighbourhood boys who are forever caught in the heady current of her absence. Each chapter explores a different possibility of Nora’s fate, from an horrendous death to a stifling suburban life to a mystical existence in India. As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumours, divergent suspicions, and tantalising what-ifs, Nora Lindell’s story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her. Quite apart from the central mystery, this book captures the peculiarities, trials and humour of males moving from adolescence into adult life more than anything else I’ve read in a long, long time. Highly recommended.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Staff picks
Fiona Stager
Kasia Janczewski
Five Bells
Zeitoun
Ottoman Motel
Half Brother
Gail Jones PB $29.95
Dave Eggers PB $24.95
Christopher Currie PB $32.95
Kenneth Oppel HB $27.95
Gail Jones is one of my favourite Australian writers. She is a highly regarded by literary judges but hasn’t yet garnered the mass appeal of someone like Tim Winton. This is the book that will change that. Five Bells is such a beautiful piece of writing, I found myself re reading parts and when I finished I wanted to start right back at the beginning. Set on a radiant day in Sydney, four adults converge on Circular Quay, site of the iconic Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Crowds of tourists mix with the locals, enjoying the glorious surroundings and the play of light on water. But each of the four carries a complicated history from elsewhere; each is haunted by past intimacies, secrets and guilt. Ellie is preoccupied by her sexual experiences as a girl, James by a tragedy for which he feels responsible, Catherine by the loss of her beloved brother in Dublin and Pei Xing by her imprisonment during China’s Cultural Revolution. Symbols and patterns reverberate through the book creating a web that binds the characters and the reader together. Gail Jones has written a love song to Sydney.
The flood was a devastating experience for those who lost so much and a dizzying one for those not directly affected. I wanted to understand the trauma that my community had suffered so I turned to the bookshelf and found Zeitoun by Dave Eggers — a biography of a family that survived Huricane Katrina.
Yes, that Chris Currie, our Chris Currie. His novel The Ottoman Motel is out in May, and we all have reason to celebrate because it’s brilliant.
With a life-long penchant for all things monkey, the silhouette of a baby chimp gracing the cover of Kenneth Oppel’s Half Brother caused me to pick it up with great interest. I was not so smitten, however, once I quickly realised the story’s premise: thirteen-year old Ben’s scientist parents bring home a baby monkey, ‘Zan’, to raise as a human. An intriguing scenario perhaps, but for me it did nothing but connote awful images of banana joke filled C-grade ‘comedies’ starring Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider or some other equally repulsive schmuck. It put me off so much so that I considered putting it down and beginning another, more appealing, book. But in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. Young Adult Fiction writer Kenneth Oppel breathes an earnest amount of honesty and humanity into a book that is for the most part wholly unrealistic. Throughout the course of the book, protagonist Ben not only comes to terms with his ‘half brother’, but begins the transition from boy to man — and all of the school, bully, family and girl troubles that come with it. Set in the 1970’s, Half Brother also comes with a whole set of smile-inducing pop culture references, such as Ben buying the brand new ABBA record Waterloo for his love interest or slow dancing to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ at the school dance. Even with it’s outlandish premise, Half Brother is a book full of laughter, tears, hoots and pants that I would recommend to young readers. Ages 13+
New Orleans was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina and its resulting floods in 2005. The chaos that descended upon its residents and rescue workers was broadcast internationally and the world was aghast at the brutality and danger of the situation. Zeitoun follows the life of Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun, along with their children from the days preceding the hurricane and then through the tumultuous journey of the disaster that fractured their family in irreparable ways. Eggers invites us into the childhoods, love story, spirituality and adventures that brings this family together – Addulrahman traversing the world by sea from the coast of Syria to eventually settle in New Orleans where he meets his wife Kathy, who has recently converted from Christianity to Islam. They love their city and spend everyday improving it with their painting and construction business overcoming obstacles of racial and religious intolerance to be embraced by their community. But as the disaster unfolds and they suffer shocking injustices the peace and security of their lives is stripped away. The facts of this story and the cruelty experienced are inconceivable but the fortitude of this family is truly amazing. Zeitoun is a compelling and compassionate reading experience.
Trent Jamieson
When Simon’s parents go missing in the small coastal town of Reception, everything changes. The Ottoman Motel is a haunting novel that charts the dark passage into adulthood, and the things we lose along the way. It’s always hard to read a fellow writer (and friend’s novel) putting aside professional jealousy, you never know if you’re going to be able to separate the person from the book. But there was no problem with the Ottoman Motel, I was swept away, and enchanted from the first page. Chris has a mastery of the apt metaphor, and a control of simile that is truly breathtaking. But it’s not just a beautifully written book (and debut novel at that), it’s also an absolutely compelling read. There are secrets and lies in this story, and moments that are utterly stunning. The Ottoman Motel is one of the best novels I have read in a very long time, that it was written by a fellow Avidian is at once jealousy-inducing and very satisfying.
James
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Kevin Guy
Helen Bernhagen
Verdi Guy
Kate Lee
The Chase
When the Killing’s Done
Forgotten
When Horse Became Saw
T.C. Boyle PB $33.00
London Lane is a 16 year old with an extraordinary life. She has the ability to see into the future, something a lot of people dream to be able to do. But for London this power also means she cannot remember anything of the past – a kind of amnesia. When she falls asleep at night all her memories disappear. When she wakes up she relies on her notes, her best friend and visions of the future to get her through her high school life.
Christopher Kremmer PB $33 I am not a betting man and I don’t care for horse racing. However, I do back Christopher Kremmer’s debut novel The Chase to win over readers on both these topics. Kremmer is best known for his literary non-fiction writing about Asia. In these books (Bamboo Palace, Carpet Wars and Inhaling the Mahatma) Kremmer deftly weaves historical detail, current affairs and personal memoir to craft enthralling stories of people and places. He achieves the same result with The Chase. Inspired by a true story, The Chase has two concurrent but ultimately connected stories of the spivs and skids in the horse racing industry and Sydney society post-WWII. Young chemist Jean Campbell is employed by the charismatic racing steward Howard Carter to establish the first drug testing laboratory for the Australian Jockey Club. This initiative is not universally welcomed in the Sport of Kings. Overtime the relationship between Jean and Howard evolves from professional to personal and both are drawn deeper into the politics of doping which leads to the stables. Kremmer opens up the mucked-out stables of former leading trainer Martin Foley and the complex and intriguing relationships of his staff. Long suspected of doping Foley is firmly in the cross-hairs of Carter. Foley longs for one last big win and some respect. To achieve both he will deceive. I was particularly taken by the voice Kremmer gives his stable characters and the idioms of the period. With several subtle sub-plots Kremmer delivers a very clever and finely written novel.
Through a combination of research, empathy, and sheer narrative muscle, T. C. Boyle’s When The Killing’s Done poses many difficult questions while also offering an engrossing and deeply human drama. The story is set off the coast of California in the Northern Channel Islands. Anacapa is a rocky delicate ecosystem that’s been tread upon, by humans and other animals, for hundreds of years. Shipwrecks have introduced species. Sheep have overgrazed the land. Where ground-nesting birds once flourished, black rats and feral pigs are now destroying the earth. The plot focuses on the clash of two mighty wills on opposite sides of a bitter ideological divide. Alma Boyd Takesue, a pregnant National Parks Service biologist spearheading the extermination of the invasive species that are attacking the native animal populations and Dave LaJoy, a wealthy animal rights activist determined to stop the killing at any cost. Boyle has previously written on politically charged topics, such as in The Tortilla Curtain. What makes When the Killing’s Done such a gripping tale is that it’s not about choosing a side, or determining who gets to live. Ultimately, it’s about how life can get in the way of righteousness, how the notion of what’s natural in our world or ourselves defies any attempt at rational reduction, and the sometimes arrogance of humans who try hard to remove their footprint from the world.
Cat Patrick PB $22.95
When London meets Luke, a boy who she cannot see in her future vision, she is worried. But London cannot help fall for Luke, a caring and sensitive boy, and soon enough a relationship is born. As London begins to remember some moments from her past, deep secrets and truths are revealed. A recurring flashback of a funeral plagues London and leads her to reveal some mysteries of her past. Forgotten is an incredible book that has stuck in my mind. I became so involved with the lives of the characters that I couldn’t put the book down. It was fascinating, thrilling and emotional all at the same time. The suspense and mystery in the book made it a gripping read. This is sure to be a hit for young adults Ages 13+
Anthony Macris PB $32.95 Anthony Macris and his wife Kathy begin their new family life as the proud parents of a healthy baby boy. But their dreams of a family are shattered as their lively 18-month old son Alex, regresses into severe Autism. Told from a father’s perspective, this is the emotional and gently confronting memoir of Macris’ journey through the first few years of autism and its affects on his life and future. Macris possesses a writer’s sensitivity that mirrors his subject. From the first page I was captured as he navigates his way through the world of Autism, from the regression to searching for treatment and appropriate services. Left with little choice in regard to government services, Macris and Kathy take Alex’s treatment into their own hands. Whilst not light hearted, Macris delicately balances humility with indignation over the government’s lack of support for the intellectually disabled. Macris negotiates this very sensitive and personal story with clarity and objectivity (reinforced by a lot of research), yet effortlessly takes the reader into the emotional terrain that turned his normal suburban world upside down. Ultimately, this is a heartbreaking story, beautiful written, about the love between a father and son.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Staff Picks
Trent Jamieson
Sarah Deasy
Sophie Weston
Fiona Stager
Rivers of London
Unnatural
The Paris Wife
Ben Aaronovitch PB $33
Philip Ball HB $59.95
The Lover’s Dictionary
Between Neal Gaiman’s Neverwhere, China Mieville’s Kraken and Kate Griffin’s Matthew Swift books, you’d think there’d be nothing new for Urban fantasists to write about London. But Aaronovitch has provided a wonderfully readable, and unique, addition to genre: think Buffy meets the Bill.
As the great debate on cloning and designing babies in the laboratory rages on, whether you agree with it or not, in order to make a compelling argument you need to know your history – and the ethical questions behind ‘growing people’ have been philosophised and debated since the Ancient Greeks.
David Levithan PB $22.95
Peter Grant is a probationary constable in the Metropolitan Police Service and an apprentice wizard (through no fault of his own). His guvnor, DI Nightingale, has him dealing with Vampires, River gods, and all manner of weirdness as they try to solve a series of increasingly bloodthirsty murders.
Look beyond the newspaper headlines of ‘Frankenstein Scientists’ and ‘Brave New Embryos’ to find out why we think the way we do, and how our prejudices, fears and fantasies have been shaped through thousands of years of myths; when Pope John Paul II condemned IVF in 2004, he was not talking as a Christian but from a tradition that predated his faith. We are all a subject of our time and those who came before us, and the literature and films of popular culture that exert their influence on our morality can not be taken as stand alone thoughts.
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twentyeight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness, until she meets the much younger Ernest Hemingway. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they soon fall in with a circle of lively and volatile expatriates, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Ernest and Hadley are thrust into a life of artistic ambition, hard liquor and spur-of-the-moment dashes to Pamplona, the Riviera and the Swiss Alps. But Jazz Age Paris does not lend itself to family life and fidelity. As Hadley struggles with jealousy and self-doubt, Ernest’s ferocious literary endeavours begin to bear fruit, and the couple faces the ultimate crisis of their marriage — a deception that will lead to the unravelling of everything they made for themselves in Paris, their ‘great good place’. In The Paris Wife, Mclain has recreated not only the Paris of the 20s & 30s but she has got under the skin of this marriage. In some ways it’s a psychological portrait of a young woman whose only perceived talent is to having married Ernest Hemingway. McLain captures the time and people well and had me reaching for some of Hemingway’s early work to re-read.
The book’s fast and funny, and the London Aaronovitch draws with its peculiar vampires, and sexy rivers, is fascinating and compelling. I devoured it in a couple of days. The Rivers of London is an affably bloodthirsty affair and a very promising start to what looks like a great series. Book two Moon over Soho is due out later in the year. Highly recommended.
Like most philosophical writings, a few of the ideas presented by Ball make the page start to blur in front of my eyes, but this is a book that benefits from re-reading and pencil notes in the margins. Although his openness to ideas conveys a sense of liberalism in his writing, Ball does not attempt to answer questions but merely put them into perspective. Everyone may take a different interpretation and whether it affirms your current beliefs or pushes you in another direction, it is sure to make those dinner party conversations a lot more interesting!
Beautiful yet devastating The Lover’s Dictionary captures the essence of the significant moments that colour a relationship and eventually disintegrate it. But not in that order. The Lover’s Dictionary is intriguing, poignant and at times hilarious. The aesthetic of modern short stories that one would find in places such as The Lifted Brow or McSweenies Quarterly Review seems out of place in a novel by a “YAF” author with a huge pink love heart on the front. Nevertheless, the aesthetic is incredibly pleasing for anyone who loves fast poetic rhythm, dark discourse and emotive language with their novels. It is full of sentiments that you can relate to, or hope you never do, or know you never would. The story itself is fractured, a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces that you fill in with your own feelings about love and relationships. Repetition is used sparingly and to incredible effect towards the end of the book. The format of the book, which relays stories in relation to words from the dictionary, is a clever idea and is usually executed with perfection. There were only a couple of times when the words and associated stories felt pretentious or forced. The Lover’s Dictionary is a book that is truly for anyone. It is equal parts daggy and cool, straightforward and intellectual, and optimistic and disillusioned.
Paula McLain PB $30
Buy a copy of The Paris Wife and receive a free Hemingway novel. (While stocks last)
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Avid Reader often partners with the wonderful local organisation Foodconnect. Their goal is to provide local and sustainable food to communities in South East Queenlsand by sourcing the best local produce and bringing it directly to the people. We asked Foodconnect about their part in the recent floods and this is what they said: by Emma-Kate Rose, ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT, FOOD CONNECT FOUNDATION
As we all clean up after the floods, we’re also now hearing about the difficult times ahead — rising costs, rising expenditure, inflationary pressure, higher rates, etc. One of the major shortages ahead will be food. Not only have the farms been wiped out, but it’s going to take them years to re-establish crops and plantations. We’ve all heard about the problems at the Rocklea markets, but we haven’t heard about how food supplier, Food Connect has been faring. Food Connect is a social business which aims as much as possible to put the face on farmers’ food, act as a facilitator between farmers and city folk, create drop off spots called city cousins for city people to pick up fresh produce, get to know their farmer and get a connection with the land in their bioregion. The Rocklea Markets were taken out during the floods, and they are the major distribution point in SEQ. Food Connect were also on tender hooks on the Thursday night because they couldn’t deliver on Thursday. But by Friday, the Produce Coordinators Rueben and Luke gave the thumbs up. They were worried because most of the farmers are located within the flood-prone areas. The farmers were ready to supply, they’d worked out alternative transport arrangements for some badly affected farmers. They went through unabated and actually ended up with excess produce, and in the process, also managed to supply 3,000 meals over the weekend, and delivered ice to all the areas with no power. Over the course of the weekend, chefs and volunteers turned up to the warehouse, in non-flood affected Salisbury, to cook up all the excess produce. On the Friday many trucks turned up all through the night and it soon became clear that the humble Food Connect warehouse acted as THE transport hub, because Rocklea was completely under. Robert Pekin, the founder of Food Connect found that living without power at his home in West End was losing its attraction, so he, his
family and a few staff took refuge at the warehouse to receive goods for many small businesses and restaurants who’d heard about them and used them as an interim pick up spot. During the floods, Gympie’s supermarket shelves were empty but the little guys had plenty of stock. It surprised even Robert, and he’s been on about a local food system for 15 years now, and he thought, “Here we go, this is the test”. Pretty much all of SEQ was wiped out and Food Connect has about 120 farmers in that area. Astonishingly, only five farmers required help and working bees were organised to help them out with mending fences and other clean up jobs. This shows the strength of local family farms having a direct network to their consumers, and the advantages in by-passing the major supermarkets. The sheer power of the major logistics chains, owned by the big supermarkets, clearly didn’t cut it in times of emergency. Food Connect used facebook as a vehicle to share the news, and through word of mouth even got food across to Bellbowrie. The saying, “You’re only 9 meals away from anarchy” resonated in that community at that time, with the authorities scrambling for solutions. Meanwhile, at about 3.15am on Wednesday evening, a bunch of fit West End folk had emptied out and filled two canoes and a dinghy, and under the cover of darkness avoided the police and delivered fresh produce into Bellbowrie. They kept doing that for the next couple of days, beating the army in. There’s a lot of things that have struck Robert about the flood, and to him it was plain to see that food wasn’t seen as a critical essential service. Robert reflects, “The authorities were mostly worried about getting power on, but if you don’t have a meal in your tummy.... It’s an essential thing. It’s a special thing, food. It shouldn’t be seen as a ‘commodity’. As all of Queensland saw, everyone pitched in and helped. But we even got through the landslide on Mt Nebo — we have little, nimble vans,
and drivers who know the local roads, and farmers have got contacts everywhere, helped us out. We were able to sneak around all the back roads, our farmers were even able to sneak around all the back roads, even our farmers were able to get out in the paddocks because they’re not reliant on big heavy machinery. They didn’t have bent up irrigation gear. So their losses, particularly the smaller ones, were minor. So the resilience of this local food system: being small, nimble, armed with local knowledge, really showed itself through this particular event.” One of Food Connect’s farmers who fared OK, sent down a heap of meat to feed the volunteers. Only one farmer asked Food Connect for a price rise for a limited time because his aquaponics system suffered some damage. All other farmers were fine, mind you they pay them pretty well -— last year they paid 59% of the retail dollar back to their farmers, and that’s pretty incredible when we know what the supers are giving them, an average 15-20% — and they still haven’t had a price rise since 2009. This means a fair slab of the money or profits goes back to the farmers who sign up, so they’re not only helping city people get healthy, clean food, but they’re also creating healthy, economically viable farms. “That’s the dual goal that sometimes gets us a bit caught out, and we’re a non-profit social enterprise here in Brisbane, and we have replicated the model in Sydney and Adelaide, with the Sunshine Coast, Hobart, Newcastle, Canberra not far off from starting up. It’s one of these new-age, open source systems that isn’t about money, it’s about just doing the right thing for a critical service.” says Robert. It is a great flood story — the fact that the Food Connect system was able to get around the problems that the big suppliers weren’t, and get into the places that the authorities and those with all the technical gear couldn’t, all due to local knowledge and local ability.
A daisy chain of good will
A motorcycle adventure through the Queensland floods ON THE MORNING of Friday 14 January I knew my motorcycle wasn’t going to behave. Three days earlier, the day of the first high tide of the Brisbane floods, I decided to move the bike to higher ground. We live on the ground floor of a tall apartment block right on the river in New Farm. Glenfalloch was one of the first high-rise apartment blocks to be built in Brisbane. In 1959 it was a pretty impressive sight towering over the single story riverside houses. Even today it has a certain retro charm if you are fond of Eastern Block architecture or have a fetish for hospital buildings. The residents who survived the ‘74 floods are fond of the story about how the building was saved from almost certain destruction by an ingenious system of wooden slats, heavy plastic and sandbags. If water got into the foundations of the building it would compromise the entire structure. My motorcycle was parked outside my unit. It had been raining solidly for days, not just ordinary rain, but rain so heavy that it obscured vision. During the heaviest falls we could barely see the houses across the river. A wall of grey marching in waves across the city. Through all of this my bike had sat, unused, outside on the street, sucking up the water into every hose and pipe and bolt hole. The tank needs re-sealing and I was certain that it would have taken some water. It was low on petrol too. It didn’t surprise me that it took a while to get the engine going. The thing revved tentatively, popped, stopped, started again. I bunny-hopped the bike up to the top of the hill and abandoned it there, trudging back to my apartment to move our most precious possessions up to the eighth floor. My friend Colin’s house is built on the lowest point in Ryan Street, West End and was one of the first places to take water. On the morning of the 11th, the property was waist deep in water hours before the river broke its banks. There is a storm water drain at the back of the house and the rising river discovered this outlet, filling their garden as if their house alone had been targeted by the rising tides. Colin worked tirelessly to save everything he could from the place, carting boxes as he waded through the water, joined at one point by Kevin Rudd who looked a little out of his element, a pale office-dweller startled by the twin terrors of hard physical labour and the rising tide. Colin called me on the mobile, his voice so high and loud that I could almost hear the adrenalin pumping through his body. At the time I didn’t realise he had been up all night carting his family’s possessions through water side by side with the former Prime Minister of the country. At this time we were hours away from the first high tide. “Get your stuff up to Ben and Scott’s unit now!” He was shouting into the phone. Ben and Scott’s unit is up on the eighth floor. We have the spare keys to their unit. Ben was away in India at the time and Scott, a producer for local ABC radio had moved into a motel near work so that he could work around the clock to keep Brisbane listeners informed. We had already taken several loads of our own possessions up to the eighth floor when the power was cut to our area. The lift relies on power. We made two
by Krissy Kneen
more trips, straining under the weight of boxes of books and computer equipment, trudging up eight flights of stairs in the sweltering humidity before deciding that our possessions weren’t actually important enough to save. I told Colin this but he was adamant, and threatened to drive across town to help us move our stuff upstairs. Soon after this the bridges were closed and we were supported in our laziness by the rising tide. The next time I spoke to Colin his house was under water. He and his mother, Silvia had visited the building, rowed out into the street by a man in a dingy. ON FRIDAY 14 JANUARY I picked up my helmet and my jacket with a sense of foreboding. The river had risen, done it’s business, displaced thousands of residents, ripped the Riverwalk out from under our feet, torn out the ferry stop behind our apartment, and then slunk back into it’s home within its banks. This was just a taste of the kind of apocalypse we saw often enough in movies and on TV. People roamed the streets, mostly on foot or on their bicycles, with a dazed expression on their faces. Most of our neighbours had been up for several nights wondering if their houses would be inundated and then trying to contact friends and family. Many had lost possession. I was reminded of The Road by Cormac McCarthy and wondered how long it would take for us to turn to cannibalism in a completely catastrophic event. The flood didn’t reach the expected peak. It certainly would have taken out our unit and much of our street if it had. My motorcycle would have been covered in mud if I had left it parked where it usually is. When Colin called that morning I had a vague sense of guilt that my flat had been spared when their house had gone under. “We could really do with an extra pair of hands,” he told me. I stared at my motorcycle parked at a lean at the top of the hill. I was determined to make the thing start. There were no busses running between New Farm and West End, two flood affected suburbs divided by the river, and although I lived in New Farm, my heart was in West End. I work on the main street there and my dearest friends and all of the customers I have come to love live over that side of the river. I would get over the river even if it meant I would have to walk for hours. Surprisingly the bike started first try. I did, however, notice a little red light warning me that there was very little petrol left in the tank. I started out in the direction of the nearest petrol station, down near Fortitude Valley. There were streets cordoned off with police tape, workers out and raking mud. The bike sputtered and stopped on Brunswick Street and I switched over to the reserve tank. The bike rolled to a stop outside the petrol station, more police tape, no lights on in the place, and now I was further away from my friends than when I started the bike in the first place. One last try. The bike started, reluctantly, hopped forward, reared out into the traffic. I turned into Ann Street, starting, stopping, running out of steam each time I had to slow down for the traffic. Finally the engine died completely and I rolled the Virago down a side street and came to a stop outside Brisbane Mini Garage.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
This article was first published on the Griffith Review blog http://www.griffithreview.com/component/content/article/1053.html
I was dressed in my shovelling-mud-clothing, Motorcycle boots, old jeans tucked into them, a threadbare singlet top. The Mini Garage is a very ‘New Farm’ business. Shiny cars parked inside an immaculate showroom, a top of the range espresso machine, cans of soft drink in a little refrigerator beside it. I must have looked a little like one of the rats racing to higher ground to escape the rising tide. When I told the sales assistant that my bike had run out of petrol I may have been close to tears. The air conditioned luxury of the showroom with it’s plush leather lounge chairs and gleaming little cars was such a contrast to my experience of the last few days. It seemed that this place had been plucked from a time before the floods and preserved like a time capsule of things now extinct. I told the man I was looking for a petrol station within walking distance. I would have no chance of getting help from the RACQ with so many vehicles being towed out of the mud they landed in. He told me to sit and grab a cold drink from the fridge. I would have loved a cold drink but for some reason I felt too embarrassed to take a soda from the cabinet. I sank into the soft clean leather and waited, nursing my helmet, feeling like I was somehow messing up their place. In a few minutes he returned with a jerry can and a funnel and the kindness of this act would have made me tear up if it hadn’t been for the woman in the Mini Garage uniform who walked into the showroom in tears herself. The man raced to hug her and she explained that she was just really, really tired. I filled the tank and made it to West End, the bike struggling through a carburettor full of grit from the dregs in the tank. COLIN AND SILVIA’S house was covered in mud. Two stories full of river sludge mixed with the back wash from the sewerage system throughout Brisbane. Colin had saved a lot of their possessions but there was still furniture that had been floating in toxic water for two days. Inside waterlogged boxes I found photographs, personal documents, and, heartbreakingly, funeral notices, letters and postcards from friends who had passed away. It would have been easy to cry for their losses, but there was a carnival atmosphere on Ryan Street. Young hippy girls patrolled the street offering people muffins and cookies from wicker baskets. Friends and customers appeared from nowhere with shovels and brooms to help us clear the top floor of mud. A group of pretty young Christian girls mopped up downstairs, flirting with strapping neighbourhood boys with bandannas tied across their brows. Someone turned up with a Gurney and everyone cheered. Kevin Rudd came back to the site of his awkward evacuation of a few nights before and handed me some hand sanitiser. The army marched into the yard and removed debris. Someone set up a barbecue at the end of the street. There was tea. We mucked out mud and joked and cleaned and no one cried and there was a sense that we were actually achieving something useful. We trooped home, exhausted but elated to friends’ houses — the ones that still had power. Friends who had been working at their day jobs pitched in to cook us all dinner and crack open bottles of wine. THE THING THAT stuck with me was that first act of kindness. I woke the next morning, sore but happy in my powerless flat with a plan to go back over to West End, finish the job we had begun and a burning desire to buy a nice bottle of wine for the man at the Mini Garage in the Valley.
Another day of cleaning. When the street in West End flooded with hundreds of volunteers, we drove out to friends at Graceville though kilometres of destroyed suburban houses. Graceville looked like a war zone and when we arrived there was nothing to do but destroy the Gyprock walls with a cricket bat and shovel the debris into piles on the footpath. Because it was a Saturday my husband had the day free to help out and he had heard me harping on about that bottle of wine for the Mini Garage man for most of the day. The closest wine shop to the showroom was at James Street, an exclusive shopping precinct where I feel underdressed shopping in my best clothing. Covered in mud and smelling like someone who had just climbed out of a toilet bowl I braved the ladies who lunch and waited at the counter to be served. I asked the sommelier to find me the best bottle in my price range and explained that it was for someone who had helped me in the flood. He nodded and smiled, a sympathetic smile, one that I had seen several times that day. Yes, his smile told me, I understand how difficult it is to shovel mud. Yes, I understand how exhausted you must feel. He set a bottle of wine on the counter and two bottles of Grolsch beside it. “And there’s your discount,” he told me. I had to leave the shop quickly. That teariness I had experienced in the Mini showroom had returned. “My motorcycle girl!” The man seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I thought for a moment that he might give me a hug. I pressed the bottle of wine into his hand, said a quick thanks and left just as quickly. It is the small acts of kindness that undo me; the jerry can full of petrol, the two icy bottles of Grolsch. All around Brisbane acts of generosity were gathering momentum; the two people from Sandford who quietly walked into the house at Ryan Street and began to clean the bathroom from top to bottom; the man with the Gurney who turned up to blast the walls; the people who fed us three nights in a row when we were busy cleaning other people’s houses; the couple we didn’t know who worked tirelessly until one of them fainted and the other got a bloody nose. All of these small acts of kindness, and yet under the pile there is that first gesture of generosity that will stay with me. That evening on Facebook I was so overwhelmed by these acts that I uncharacteristically missed the opportunity to make a lewd joke. ‘A circle of kindness’ I called it, later amending it in a note to ‘a daisy-chain of good will’. My dear friend Christopher upgraded it to a ‘circle-jerk of generosity’ which made me laugh when I dearly needed to. Whatever you call it, Brisbane is currently drowning in a pool of it. Some people call it the Brisbane Floods, but I prefer to call it the daisy-chain of good will, a time when friends and strangers found their moment to shine, and they glowed with an almost unbearable brilliance. I think it will take us many, many weeks to adjust to the light. 21 January 2011
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ofMixed
A Flood
Feelings
We all have our flood stories. Mine started with a visit to the dentist. This was on the Monday of flood week, before anyone knew what was heading down the river. In the morning we’d taken our regular walk along Orleigh Park into Riverside Drive, West End. The river was high and fast, strong enough to have wrenched a six metre high mangrove out of its socket in the rocks. We paused to admire the force of the water, the lovely way it curled back and caressed its mangled victim before hooning off downstream.
paintings and drawings, my husband’s work of thirty years, my son’s from four years at art school. Then we sat in front of the television and watched what we might be in for in the next twenty-four hours if we weren’t extremely lucky. The neighbours came by. They wanted to know when we were leaving. Not yet we told them, but then we all decided that if the water started backing up the stormwater drains then we’d be in real trouble. We gathered round and peered through the grate. The drain was still flowing normally.
Bill, my dentist, grew up in the house overlooking Orleigh Park on the corner of Montague Road, where his mother still lives.
‘Fingers crossed,’ they said.
‘She keeps ringing me,’ he told me while he was scraping something gritty off the back of my teeth. ‘Wanting to know if she should start shifting everything upstairs.’ ‘Should she?’ I said, thinking of our own house a few hundred metres along the same street. ‘No,’ said Bill. ‘That’s what the dam’s for isn’t it?’ He gleefully expounded on how bad things had been in ’74. That was never going to happen again he told me. All night the rain continued and all the next morning. In the gaps between downpours we moved everything we could upstairs; paintings, books, beds, clothes, more
Grantham was on television. What had happened there was unprecedented. A wall of water. Toowoomba followed. An instant inland tsunami. The premier told us solemnly we were in for something bigger than ’74. She looked like she was about to cry. By now there were policemen on every corner, blocking access from Montague Road to the river. That was both encouraging, and not. It showed that the authorities were prepared and organised, but it also meant they were expecting something very bad to happen. The water was stealing up Kurilpa Street like a thief. The house on the corner of Harriett Street was already sitting in a pool of caramel milkshake coloured slurry half way up its stumps. While we still had the internet my son looked up the council flood map for our house and told me we’d been spared in the ’74 flood so we should be okay. I wanted to
believe him, but people on television kept telling us this would beat ’74, like it was some kind of contest. One simulation kept showing the river reaching seven metres. They’d coloured the water fire-engine red just to make us really afraid. We turned the television off for a while and went to find the torches, the candles and the matches. We filled the bathtub with water. While the afternoon wore on we cooked whatever food we could save from spoiling once the power went down. Knots of people gathered at the police roadblocks to stare and take pictures. None of us had ever seen anything like this before. It felt less like the river rising than the city sinking and sliding away. Firm ground no longer meant anything. The offices opposite our house were standing in two metres of muck. There was no saving what was stored below street level — cars, office machines, furniture, bulk food. That’s when I realised there are different kinds of fear. There’s the stabbing variety when the plane drops a foot in mid-air, and the resigned variety when the Shanghai taxi driver keeps swapping lanes doing a hundred and sixty in a car tied together with string. But floodwaters, the sight and smell of them, the treacherous way they move across the landscape completely out of bounds, I now associate with a slow burn kind of terror mixed with admiration, even joy.
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Review
Krissy Kneen
Me and Mr Booker Cory Taylor PB $32.95
CORY TAYLOR
I was taught to love rain. My mother used to tell me how the sound of the rain on the roof of her childhood home out west would send everyone out of doors to get wet through and dance in the mud. We live near the river so we can see it close-up every day. It’s a beautiful sight. Even now that the water is down again and stained a drab brown, and the banks are all buried in silt, the river draws us to it. Despite our fear we still come and watch the way it flows, and wonder at the rules it lives by that have nothing to do with us. The vacant block next door, which is as deep and wide as a couple of swimming pools, saved us in the end. The worst we had to endure was a few days without power. We played board games by candlelight and took icy showers. We told each other over and over again how lucky we were. We couldn’t believe how fickle the water had been, punishing some while leaving others untouched within the same neighbourhoods, often on the same streets. As it turned out Bill’s mother was flooded. I saw her on television surveying the damage to the ground floor of her place. The next week when I took my son to his check-up I asked Bill if his mum was doing okay.
‘She’s fine,’ said Bill, irritated. ‘Is she staying with you?’ I asked. He shook his head in an impatient kind of way. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re in Fairfield.’ He didn’t need to say any more. Fairfield, down by the river, had been right in the way of all that water as it careened around the corner at the St Lucia reach taking boats and pontoons and City Cat jetties with it, dam or no dam. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. And everybody in the room laughed. I don’t think they meant to, but it had been a strange week, probably one of the strangest any of us had ever experienced, and nobody had yet sorted out how to talk about it without a mix of emotions from incredulity, to fright, to sheer relief that we were all still here turning up to get our teeth fixed.
I picked up this book because it was written by a regular Avid Reader customer and a good friend of the shop. I expected to like it perhaps as much as any other debut novel, but I was completely floored by the quality of the prose and admittedly jealous of how assured the book is. As a fellow writer, I wish I had written Me and Mr Booker myself. It has fast become one of my favourite books of all time, easily holding it’s head up next to my absolute favourite, Nabokov’s Lolita. This delicate coming of age story follows 16 year old Martha who’s own family is falling apart when the worldy, debonair and delightful Mr Booker walks into her life. The teenaged Martha and Mr Booker soon begin an affair, problematic for the girl, the man and also his wife who is desperate to have a child. Rather than condemning the affair outright, Taylor carefully, and with humour, paints a portrait of a relationship that is full of love, desire, joy, heartbreak and complications. Nothing is simple in this tale but everything is superbly human. The world is described so beautifully that it transports any reader back to this very tangible time and place, Canbera in the 70s. Cory Taylor’s Me and Mr Booker has the heart of Lolita and the soul of Catcher In The Rye, this is one of the most assured debut novels I have ever read. These characters feel so real that they become almost family. Refreshing, surprising, sexy and ultimately very moving.
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by JAMES BUTLER
WEST END BUSINESSES BATTLE THE FLOODS Avid Reader’s newest staff member takes a walk through a damp but undefeated suburb. Nostalgia can be both a positive and negative thing. While it can be a good thing to look back at the past, too often it can blur our perception of the present. Time and again we hear about Australians no longer being neighbourly; that over time we have become too self-absorbed to poke our heads over the fence for a chat or cup of tea, that mammoth supermarket chains have ruined our local grocers, bakers and butchers and that our goals and desires are too far spread to consider our immediate surroundings. All in all, apparently Australia is no longer the conglomerate of closely-knit communities it once was. But in the wake of the devastating floods, the response of communities, businesses and Australians have made me question if this is so. Being out of Brisbane at the time of the floods, I saw the events like the rest of Australia: unravelled slowly whilst glued to television screens, online articles, tweets, status updates and any other source I could get my hands on. As much as I tried to inform myself, I was still isolated by this barrier of reporters, journalists and news anchors. It wasn’t, however, until I returned to Brisbane that the true effects of the floods became apparent. People and places I knew had been shattered and evacuated; the city had been gutted and the remnants were laid in devastating horror. That barrier the media had built had well and truly been brought down, and gave some perspective on how the floods had truly affected us all to varying degrees. For so many, West End is home. A vibrant hub for businesses, creatives and quintessential
eccentrics, West End is a community that survives independently to the hustle of the CBD. It is perhaps this fact that made the idea of West End going under so hard to swallow. I cannot begin to fathom the effect that the waters have had on West End residents. The local traders of Boundary Street and beyond also felt the effects.
concern but making offers to help move stock was staggering. In addition to this, others have reported that the West End Green Grocer was handing out free organic ice blocks in the midst of the summer heat. Although devastating, the floods have well and truly reinforced that the people of West End are connected by more than purely geographical bonds.
The flood’s effect on West End businesses is both extensive and startling. With major power outages, some traders refrigerated stock had to be thrown out. With suppliers unable to make deliveries or falling victim to the floods themselves, some West End businesses found themselves without stock all together. Some were not as lucky, with waters inundating many such as iconic West End hang out Three Monkeys. The very idea of opening for business during such harrowing times seemed outlandish for many. Some stores had to close for up to four days, and worries about foot traffic in the days, weeks, and months to come were totally warranted. But in such grim times, the wealth of compassion from our local area has truly reigned supreme.
In fact, the response of the community has been truly humbling. At Avid we have been inundated with emails, tweets and messages from customers wishing us well, and we are not alone. All over Brisbane and indeed Australia, people have been raising money for those affected: benefit concerts, charity auctions and other events have all been gathering funds. At Avid Reader’s Flood Photography Exhibition, customers often insisted to pay more than the asking price of what we had on display. The spirit of community that had been silenced by overly romantic views of the past has never been stronger.
Not one business owner whom I spoke to was at all negative, distraught or defeated. When asked if they were worried the floods would have long term effects on sales, not one said yes. All were more worried about friends and family than stock when word reached of the floods via texts, television and local radio. Shaun of Bent Books, who in bleak irony was facing cyclonic weather on a family holiday in Vanuatu at the time the floods hit, said that the amount of messages he received from customers not only expressing
The floods have shaken West End, and the rest of Queensland, to its core. Business has been hampered: stock lost, suppliers gone and stores damaged. Residents have lost their homes, family heirlooms, possessions and, in some cases, relatives and friends. But what has emerged out of this devastation is not a Queensland defeated, but a Queensland and Australia with the same community spirit it had all long - withstanding nostalgia and all of its naysayers.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
An interview with Christopher Currie, author of ‘Ottoman Motel’ by Chris Somerville
Christopher Currie, as well as both working as a bookseller at Avid Reader and publishing a large amount of short stories in various magazines, has his first novel, The Ottoman Motel, coming out in May through Text Publishing. He took some time out to answer a few questions. How long were you working on the Ottoman Motel all up? The Ottoman Motel is the first and only novel I have written, and has been with me in various forms since I decided to write a novel, which was probably when I graduated university at the tail-end of 2002. It started with a vignette which forms one of the first scenes in the book, where Simon (the eleven year-old central character) is eating lunch with his parents. In fact, the only part of this that remains is Simon lying his head down on the table and looking intently at all the congealed food left on it. Audrey (a young girl Simon encounters) was the next character to appear, and I had the idea of Simon and her playing off in competition against one another. The Bed and Breakfast by the sea, where much of the book is set, was an early thought as well. That was when I had envisaged the old house being much scarier. How much did the novel change between drafts? The first draft, which was called From the Deep End Table, I completed in time for the 2007 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award (for which it was long-listed). An earlier, incomplete version was selected in 2005 for the Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Programme and long-listed in the same year for the Varuna Award for Manuscript Development (now the Pathways to Publication program). These earlier incarnations were much more ethereal, much more of a ghost story (I had just watched all of Twin Peaks for the first time) than what
The Ottoman Motel is now. The narrative was constructed from the points of view of eight different characters and definitely buckled under the weight of its own ambition. The first draft I wrote for Text Publishing immediately cut down the perspectives to three characters, did away with the more supernatural elements and tightened up the plot. The main difference, I suppose, is that, apart from the writing and plotting being hugely improved, the story is much, much clearer, and does more of what I originally wanted it to: i.e. be something well-written that keeps you turning the pages. I hope. Are there many similarities between this novel and your short stories? As I mentioned before, the original version of the manuscript had so many different points of view in it, I think this was me trying to find a bridge from short fiction into something longer. I did, like many young writers, cut my teeth entering writing competitions and trying to get published in literary journals of varying degrees of professionalism. The main word-length you get to play with in these environments is between 500-3000 words, so I had honed my skills for this length only. The novel was an entirely new beast. But I guess novels are still made up of moments, and hopefully I played to a short story writer’s strengths when writing the book: character, mood, tension. Was writing a blog integral to the shaping of this book?
project. The idea behind Furious Horses was to write a short story every day and post it to the blog, kick-starting my writing routine, while at the same time knowing that I would be publicly shamed if I stopped. I told as many people as I could about the blog so I couldn’t just stop doing it and think that nobody would notice. It also gave me something of a profile (‘Hey, you’re that story-a-day guy!”) which got me to a few festivals, as well as raising my profile. Are you happy with how it’s turned out? Absolutely. As I said, rewriting the manuscript has given me a very different story from the one I gave up on all those years ago. What I like, however, is that by doing so it has distilled that lyrical, unsettling mood that I set out to achieve when I first started thinking about the story. I’ve been blessed with an excellent publisher, and a wonderful editor, without whom this book would still be languishing in the proverbial bottom drawer (these days, that’s more like the bottom USB stick). What are you working on next? I’m actually writing a short film with a friend of mine from the UK, which is a nice distraction before I plough into another novel. Hopefully this one will be a little quicker. When I was drafting The Ottoman Motel, I seemed to have plenty of other ideas for books, but they seem to have disappeared now! But most of the fun, for me at least, is developing a creative idea, so I look forward to seeing what my brain comes up with ...
I’m not sure it was integral in shaping the book, but it certainly helped me in other ways. I started a blog, Furious Horses, after a long period of stagnation in my writing. I had received my long-listing from The Vogel, but after that, for a period of about four months, I had no impetus to write anything else. I thought I had gone as far as I could with the manuscript, but couldn’t bring myself to start another novel-length
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Local resident and a member of Avid’s First Tuesday Bookclub found a moment amidst the chaos of the weeks after the flood to jot down his reflections. These vignettes provide us with a snapshot of the social impact of such an historic event. Mary
Black
New friends
Mary is in her late eighties. She looks frail as she watches her son carry her ancient belongings to the curbside. They are destined for the dump. As I walk by Mary catches my eye. She has retrieved a small battered wooden chair, a remnant from a child’s picnic set. The chair has been repaired many times. Where there were once nails, mismatching screws now do the job. There is a piece of metal cut to an odd shape which holds the frame together like a cast on a broken leg. I see no value in it, nor does her son, but Mary guiltily carries it back up the muddy path. That’s an age old game you’re playing I say to her. The blokes throwing things out, the women saving things of sentimental value. It was made by my father she confides. At least I think it was, she adds.
Without power and familiar landmarks I feel disoriented. As I crest Highgate Hill where Dornoch Terrace should reveal the valley below I am shocked to find a void. Where my suburb should be I see only black. The black is fringed by the distant lights of Indooroopilly to the west and Paddington to the north. It feels like I am descending into an enormous pool of sump oil. My headlights cut through the night and guide me past dark towers towards Hill End. My family and I are alone on this unfamiliar planet. We turn into Doris Street and descend further into the dark. Armed with a torch we navigate our strange driveway to the house which has been spared. We stumble to our familiar beds and crawl under the covers calling to each other to check that we are all really here.
Sophie, Margaret, Beat, Denise, Cheryl, Michael, Helen, John and John. The streets of Hill End are strangely alive. I have met neighbours I never knew existed; I have spoken to neighbours I knew existed but had never met. I have seen inside the houses of millionaires — the riverfront mansions of architects, investment bankers and doctors. On the opposite side of the road, in the workers cottages in the gully I see the lives of the less well off piled high on the footpath. I have worked alongside strangers; I have walked alongside volunteers from as far away as Byron Bay, the Sunshine Coast, Los Angeles.
Priorities.
Quiet
© Steve Capelin
The morning after the first flood-peak the local streets have a ghostly air. It’s like we’re in the eye of a cyclone. We’re waiting for the next onslaught. I walk the deserted streets. The locals have fled. The water is up to the roofline in Ryan and Gray. The river has found its victims and is not willing to give up its hostages. On a ridge only two or three houses above the flood line, a lone figure calmly mows his front lawn.
The evenings in Hill End take on a new quality for these few days. No vehicles traverse the streets, no doof doof music pumps from the local Commodores. No voices, no TV, no sounds wafting from neighbours’ houses. Tonight the sunset seems particularly intense. A glass of sauv blanc tastes especially crisp; an eagle is hunting from the tip of the high rise on the river; the lorikeets are louder; the flying foxes float silently along the caramel St Lucia reach. The house creaks. Tonight the candles are not adornment. Andrea and I agree that there are some benefits to this imposed simplicity. Our children are not convinced.
We have all been treated with an equal disregard by nature. The river does not discriminate.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
Kasia’s art column
A beautiful thing to see
The flood was a sudden force that took away so much from the people of Brisbane — homes, precious belongings, books, our parks and businesses. But this natural disaster also gave us something — an affirmation of our cohesion as a community, as overwhelming numbers of volunteers descended upon wrecked homes with mops and buckets in tow. I witnessed strangers seamlessly co-operating to return a home to a recognisable state. People reunited after years as they gathered to help old friends. Although we would never wish for a flood we learnt something about ourselves that we may never have realised without a crisis — we came together when it was really needed. But how do we comprehend the loss, trauma and support we have experienced and observed? A natural disaster is unimaginable in scale and consequence before enduring its impact. So many people are in the process of rebuilding their homes, lives and sense of normality. The inner life of our city is still healing, a process that will continue for some time, as emotions settle after the immense stress and displacement of this situation. Art may seem like a frivolity in such extreme times when people still haven’t returned to their homes, but perhaps it actually has a unique ability to ease this crisis and our recovery.
I participated in several conversations where the experience of the flood was described as surreal. It was as though we had all been transported to another place and time; army trucks driving along our streets lined with putrid stacks of mud soaked debris that rendered our neighbourhoods foreign. I woke up suddenly one night to a waft of the stench I had been immersed in during that day suburbs away from my unaffected home. We are living in the aftermath of hurt and strangeness that requires reflection and maybe an abstracted view to comprehend our experience. The news bombarded us with images that were painful and addictive to watch, and almost compounded the suffering. So what kind of imagery can heal? During February Avid Reader decided to showcase an exhibition of donated photographs taken by the community during the floods to raise relief funds. The response was overwhelming as our walls filled with a variety of images and people paid generously to take them home. At first I thought this idea was a little morose – people drinking coffee and chatting with friends surrounded by pictures of such recent destruction. I was happy to be proven wrong.
There was a palpable spirit of generosity and warmth that emanated from this collection that was reflected and amplified by the crowd that gathered for its first viewing. It really did bring people together to share their stories and connect with each other in an effort to support those that had lost the most. There were some very beautiful and sad pictures like a close up of mud stained piano keys that will never be played again or a couch stranded in the middle of a street, now homeless like its owner. However, for all those images that captured the loss and pain that was endured there were just as many that beamed with smiles and solidarity amidst the filth and disarray. And, I don’t think it would have mattered if the photographs were from West End, Jindalee or Albion – our empathy for the suffering of others united the city and it was a beautiful thing to see, again.
Film News
Theatre
Jason Reed
Kate Lee
Twin Peaks Nights
A Mirror Up to Nature
The recent floods were terrible and I was incredibly lucky to be unaffected. For a flood themed film column, it would be in poor taste to look at film or television that features natural disasters. Instead, I thought I would talk about people coming together over film, in the same way that communities banded together to help those who were affected by the floods.
I saw Gob Squad’s first Brisbane show of ‘Super Night Shot’ at the World Theatre Festival. Four actors took to the streets, armed with video cameras, declaring a “War On Anonymity”. Performed in the Valley on a Thursday night, they filmed themselves and the general public. The actors had different tasks: The Hero must do good deeds and ultimately get a kiss; the Casting Agent scouts the streets for the willing person; the Location-Scout finds the vicinity it will happen; and the Promoter markets the Hero’s face and good will.
My partner and I had never watched Twin Peaks and lamented that we couldn’t find time to sit down and watch David Lynch’s warped creation. Eventually we organised to get together with a couple of friends on the weekend to have dinner and watch a couple of episodes. The following weekend they came to our house for dinner and we watched a couple more episodes. It quickly became a tradition and something to look forward to during the week. The host of the evening would provide dinner and the guests would bring wine and dessert. The food was always good, sometimes simple and hearty, other times lavish and mouth-watering. We had many occasions to eat cherry pie, which is very much in theme with the television show as well as crème brûlèe, balsamic strawberries and much more. Since then we’ve watched more than Twin Peaks, throwing in some movies to keep things fresh, but we still call them Twin Peaks Nights. I guess you could call it a kind of bookclub for TV shows, but it became more about seeing people that we care about and have grown closer to. It doesn’t so much matter what you watch as the people that you watch it with. However, here are some suggestions of good places to start. If you’ve never watched Six Feet Under, this series about a family undertaking business is an absolute must. Alan Ball is responsible for creating this character driven series, which is not as dark as you might expect. You may also recognise Michael C. Hall in the role of David Fisher, who most will know now as Dexter Morgan. If you’re in the mood for something more feel-good, then Northern Exposure might be for you. Dr Joel Fleichman (Numb3rs Don Eppes) is contractually obligated to work in Cicely, Alaska to pay off his scholarship. Despite his gruff New Yorker exterior he starts to find charm in this eccentric town and its inhabitants. Northern Exposure also raises questions of a philosophical, artistic and existential nature. For something that you can really get your teeth stuck into, In Treatment makes for a very intimate and intense experience. Structured over the five working days of the week, psychotherapist Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) sees a different patient each day, then visits his own psychotherapist on a Friday evening. Infidelity, obsession and depression are just some of the areas touched on in what is a truly fascinating show.
In a highly coordinated sequence the filming began an hour before the scheduled performance and ended when the actors jogged through the Powerhouse foyer, finishing their final scene by filming their future audience. The audience then entered the theatre to watch what happened the hour before. The four cameras are screened simultaneously without any edits. The group have been doing this show since 2003, are highly synchronised and have various tactics to determine if they have permission to film whom they are talking to. Now, I don’t love the Valley but it tickled me to see the landscape through the eyes of visitors. And there was a fair amount of entertainment when local identities inadvertently revealed a little too much about themselves. Yet things turned tense when the Hero asked an Aboriginal woman if he could do a good deed for her. She was the only person who said yes and asked him for a cup of tea. He bought the tea but on his return a young white man, sitting with the lady, took great offence to her being filmed and physically attacked the Hero. All humour drained out of the content. I immediately felt awkward. Perhaps embarrassed by our Valley, perhaps unsure of the ethics of what the actors were doing. I was a tad anxious for the actor playing the Hero, who was visibly shaken but never the less, carried on filming. When the actors met for the finale none had any idea what had happened until they, along with the audience, saw it on the big screen. After the film the audience was invited to a Q&A. A self proclaimed expat, recently arrived back in Brisbane, asked Gob Squad who took responsibility for the representations of the places they filmed. The returning expat was affected (negatively) by how the city was portrayed. Then a moment later, asked if there was a place Gob Squad felt their work had a great effect and created change. That image of Brisbane, reflected in the theatre that night, was confronting. And the idea of Gob Squad’s work creating change elsewhere was an interesting question. Perhaps Gob Squad’s mirror was all too clear and effectively, ineffectual?
So if you find you have a Saturday evening free, why not invite some friends over, maybe bake a cake and spend some time with people that you care about. 193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU
DVDs and CDs
April & May Events Paul Guilding The Great Disruption
Anita Heiss Paris Dreaming
Avid Reader Bookshop Monday 4th of April 6pm for 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
In conversation with Jackie Huggins
AJ Brown, Michael Kirby & Michael Lavarch Michael Kirby: Paradoxes and Principles Daniel Pedersen The Secret Genocide Avid Reader Bookshop Tuesday 5th of April 6pm for 6.30pm start. Free Event.
Andrew Fowler The Most Dangerous Man in the World In conversation with Radio National’s Paul Barclay Avid Reader Bookshop Thursday 7th of April 6pm for 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
David Herlihy The Lost Cyclist Avid Reader Bookshop Monday 11th of April 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
To be launched by Dave Costello Avid Reader Bookshop Thursday 5th of May 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
Christopher Currie The Ottoman Hotel Avid Reader Bookshop Friday 6th of May 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Free Event.
Peter Carnavas The Great Expedition Avid Reader Bookshop Sunday 15th of May 9.30am for a 10am start Free Event
Sonia Faleiro Pat Laughren, Dugald Beautiful Thing – Williamson & Trish Portrait of a Bombay FitzSimons Bar Dancer Australian Documentary: Avid Reader Bookshop Monday 23rd of May History, Practices and 6pm for a 6.30pm start Genres Launched by Anne Demy-Geroe
Tickets $5
Avid Reader Bookshop Tuesday 12th of April 6 for 6.30pm start. Free Event.
Mark McKenna An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark
Pamela Robson Wild Women
Avid Reader Bookshop Tuesday 24th of May 6pm for a 6.30pm start Tickets $5.
Avid Reader Bookshop Thursday 14th of April 6 for 6.30pm start. Free Event.
Mark Jensen Urban Cook In conversation with Fiona Donnelly Avid Reader Bookshop Thursday 28th of April 6pm for 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
Opening Hours
Avid Reader Bookshop Friday 29th of April 6pm for a 6.30pm start. Tickets $5.
Monday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm
Laid DVD RRP $29.95, Avid Price During April $24.95. We’ve been clearing our Wednesday night schedules to enjoy this hilarious and touching black comedy. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat, and if you have, you’ll definitely want to own it. From the twisted mind of Marieke Hardy comes the story of Roo McVie, an unlucky in love market analyst who discovers that every man she’s every slept with is either dead or about to die. Can she solve the mystery before it’s too late? Incredibly imaginative, and featuring some of the best TV comedy writing in years, Laid is not to be missed.
King of Limbs Radiohead CD RRP: $24.95 Avid’s Price $18.95 during April. To say we’re excited about this record is one huge understatement. We’ve all heard it, we all love it, and we all can’t wait to own our own physical copy. When a band’s eighth album gets this much coverage, you know you’re on to somethine special. This eight track album is experimental, beautiful and rewards you more with each listen. A must for the collection of any serious music lover.
Tuesday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Wednesday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Thursday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Friday 8:30 am – 8:30 pm Saturday 8:30 am – 6:00 pm Sunday 8:30 am – 5:00 pm Open most public holidays
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Michael Cunningham By Nightfall
Overlords Fiona Stager & Kevin Guy
Brisbane Irish Club Thursday 26th of May 6pm for a 6.30pm start $20/$18 concession $15 bulk booking
Bookish Underlings Krissy, Anna, Christopher, Kasia, Verdi, Trent, Emily, Nellie-Mae, Helen, Sarah, James and Darcy.
This is a Brisbane’s Better Bookshops Event.
Café Stuart, Verdi, Kate, Janna and Tara.
193 BOUNDARY STREET, WEST END, QUEENSLAND 4101 | (07) 3846 3422 | BOOKS @ AVIDREADER.COM.AU | AVIDREADER.COM.AU