A reading to make the windows crack

Dear James George

I had to leave your reading tonight before you had finished answering questions and before the wine was served. If I could have stayed I would have told you both my daughter and I were spellbound by your story. You began with a paragraph from a story by Katherine Mansfield and opened it up into a complex and heartbreaking story of a trucker and his stepson, and the way love and morality are tested and sometimes come up wanting.

The voice of the trucker was so true and delivered with such skill we were fully transported for the 25 minutes you read. And how marvellous it was to be read to for that long - to feel a story build layer upon layer until it became something solid in the room, and then started to push at the walls and belly the windows. At one stage, the door slammed shut on its own.

When you stopped there was silence as the roomful of people tried to adjust. It was a sudden ending, but we'd been abandoned, too, the story gone along with Sonny and Rico and Ceal and Claire. It will remain with me for a long time especially the image of the woman running after the orange and the way that poignant image recurred later in Sonny's guilty imagination; then there was the detail of Sonny's truckdriving, and most of all Sonny's relationship with Rico, and the darker more complex one he had with Ceal.

Thom Conroy who was the frank and cheerful chair for the Massey University event talked of the way all your novels have a strong theme of 'reaching out' - emotionally, physically - and how this gives them depth and humanity. (The story you read was the same.) You replied to Thom - and I'm paraphrasing here - that in reaching out people can experience redemption or damnation and what interests you as a writer is when the act of reaching out means people lose a little of themselves.

Thom was surprised by the story, he said it was very 'intense' and different from your three novels (Wooden Horses, Hummingbird, and Ocean Roads). I confess, ashamedly, that I haven't read any of them to be able to compare - but my 20-year-old son owns and loves Hummingbird so I'll borrow it off him tomorrow.

Meanwhile, what was the name of the story you read? And where can I find a copy of it to show him? [Stop Press: At the Edge of the Road by James George is in the new Vintage anthology Second Violin - New stories inspired by Katherine Mansfield to be released 3 October.]

As we drove away down Taranaki Street from Massey's Wellington campus my daughter, Issy (12), said 'I didn't think it was going to be all that good tonight, but it was really good. James George could be an actor the way he told that story, and Thom was cute.' And we talked about Rico, then, like he was a boy we knew.

Thanks,

Mary

James George is reading at Palmerston North's fabulous City Library at 7pm tomorrow night (September 26) with drinks starting at 6pm. The event is free. For more information on him go here. His fourth novel Theme from an Imaginary Western is due out later this year with Huia.

And congratulations to Harvey Molloy for his poetry collection Moonshot launched last night. I missed another good reading there I am told.

Big Read

ACROSS
1 The three chasers are Chance,
Balaena and …………. (8)
7 Whalers either carved bone or
………………..(7)
8 Ed's nickname (5)
11 What names were tattooed on
Friar? (4,3,5)
13 What is Speckle? (1,5)
14 How long was 'the blue"? (2,6)
15 Lilian's least favoured bird (4)
16 Leader of the chooks (5,5,5)

Okay now this is very cool -- a crossword about The Blue. I wanted to post the whole thing but couldn't make blogspot take the pdf file so you have only a tantalising glimpse of half the clues! You can find it here. The crosswords on four different NZ books were created as one of the fun things to do as part of Palmerston North City Library's brilliant Community Reads programme.

I was invited to open the programme on Wednesday night at the funky PN library which has welcoming corners for all and sundry from places for the youth to 'chill' to a reading room to a recording studio and even (I was assured) a shower for tired and dirty visitors!

Oh yes, there are books, too. Including an astonishing 28 copies of The Blue now it's been adopted by the city as one of its Community Reads.

Billed as The Ultimate Book Group, the programme encourages Palmerston Northians to read four NZ titles (The Blue, Duncan Sarkies' Two Little Boys, Shonagh Koea's The Kindness of Strangers and Jill Trevelyan's Rita Angus) and then join in a raft of activities and events around the books such as crosswords, a bus trip to the Rita Angus exhibition, watching the movie Scarfies, and attending author talks and book discussions.

The organiser is Genny Vella and she's as colourful and stimulating as the programme she's put together. I was also pleased to meet charismatic City Librarian Anthony Lewis who has a vision for his library that doesn't stop at showers and community reads.

The opening event was a blast with a keen crowd of readers and writers, a local MC (Mervyn Dykes) with a passion for stories, books for sale courtesy of Bruce McKenzie's bookshop which is part of the library complex, and a welcoming cuppa and fruit cake.

Wait. Books for sale! At a library event! Astounding stuff. And what's more both Genny and Anthony bought one for themselves. I think Palmerston North is very lucky indeed to have them. Join in the fun here.

A warning: the crosswords are not easy. I have to say I had a little trouble answering a couple of The Blue's down clues.

As part of my library 'tour' - as my friend Kim calls it - I popped in to do a reading at Waikanae Library the next day. Waikanae is a much smaller library without the bells and whistles but (thanks to Mandy the librarian) the crowd, the warmth and welcome were much the same -- helped by the presence of some loyal friends (including one I hadn't seen for almost 30 years!)and my favourite Waikane residents: my parents, my brother and my nieces.

It was the perfect place to read the one passage from The Blue which mentions Kapiti. Unfortunately land-bound whale-less Palmerston North doesn't feature at all in the book, but in one of those odd twists of fate, The Blue currently features in Palmerston North. I'll be back.

Oh, and I've just realised it's Montana Poetry Day today! There are events everywhere including one at my Rona Gallery bookshop (poetry for kids at 11 am). A quick flick to Beattie's bookblog and I see: Janet Charman has won the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards poetry category and $5000 for her collection Cold Snack, (AUP). Congratulations to her.