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Before Abby left Time Out for the dark side (publishing), she prepared these interview questions for Duncan Sarkie’s novel, Star Gazers.
Where did the idea to write about alpaca breeders come from?
A deep concern about the world we are currently living in. I could reference many aspects but the huge influence of unchecked capitalism on democracy sticks out, as does the consequences of greed. I chose to write about these issues through a microcosm. Alpacas are perfect for this: fluffy, odd-looking, smart but with very little agency on their futures, easy as a metaphor for other sectors of society in this messy world we are a part of. The small setting shifts it toward satirical comedy, which is a great medium for dissecting what is happening without readers feeling lectured to. It's a fine balance.
I love that you worked with a dramaturg on this novel - at what point did you decide you wanted to work with Miranda, and what was that process like?
Miranda Manasiadis is an old friend, who I always have great creative conversations with. She knows how to interrogate what a writer is doing, how to push them to get more out of moments, and she understands the psychology of the artist. I needed to be challenged and I needed to push beyond my well-worn grooves. The process was brilliant; I am very lucky.
There's a glossary of pretty hilarious alpaca-related terms in the front of the book - were there any that you didn't end up using?
I left out some technical ones because I didn't want to bore the reader. I kept the salacious ones. My two favourites are orgle and pronk (as will be referenced in the next question). Pronking is running and jumping with all four legs off the ground simultaneously, something I should do more often. Orgling is the sound a male alpaca makes when mating. In Star Gazers the orgling that happens is done by humans. You'll need to read it, just for those scenes!
I need to know the story of the band that played at your launch, Orgle and Pronk.
I named the band for reasons that are confidential. I asked my friends Sean O'Brien and Wade Reeve to play a song called 'Animals' by Talking Heads. The song is deranged, featuring lyrics like 'Animals think they understand / Trusting them, a big mistake / Animals want to change my life / I will ignore animals' advice!'
There's a pretty comprehensive reading/watch/listen list at the back of the book that helped you write. Can you give us some of your favourites from that list, and why they inspired you?
So many to choose from. Because you are a bookstore I'll focus on some books: The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt is an incredible book of short stories, so wild and poetic and deep and knotty. One story is about a woman who becomes a deer, so that one helped me, alongside the first 50 pages of the book of 2001: A Space Oddysey by Arthur C Clarke, which is a great read for anyone that has already seen the movie. Towards the end of my writing process I read Doppelganger by Naomi Klein and learned so much about how powerful forces have stolen the language of the victimised and used it to further their own narratives. This book is largely about language and is disturbing and fascinating in equal measure. Star Gazers has a Doppelganger storyline of it's own, featuring an alpaca called Sir Kenneth and... stop! No spoilers. Read the book and find out.
If you were a bookseller, how would you sell your book to a potential reader?
You need to read it because it speaks to the world you are living in right now. It has voting scandals, media threats, activists under pressure, winning at all costs skullduggery, weak liberals failing to stand up for their beliefs, people living in glasshouses throwing stones. It has a lot of baking, some sex noises and a scene involving ice cubes that will be hard to get out of your mind. Oh, and yes, the alpacas are cute.
What is your favourite snack to enjoy while writing?
Tamari almonds and toasted sandwiches.
Listen to Abby’s review on 95bFM here.
George visited his old mates at 95bFM this week to talk about When the Going Was Good, the new memoir from former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.
At once a delightful chronicle of an extraordinary career, and a love-letter to the halcyon days of magazine publishing, this memoir neatly blends gossip and history.
Come for Carter’s juicy encounters with celebrities and politicians, stay for his moving reflections on the importance of investigative journalism and the unique beauty of the written word.
Listen at the link below.
Stag Dance is the latest outrageous literary offering by Women’s Prize shortlisted author Torrey Peters. Comprised of three short stories and a novella, Stag Dance writhes through genders and genres, refracting facets of gender through the light of romance, dystopia and classical Westerns.
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones is set in a dystopian future, following dealers in a black market for hormones who hawk their wares to the trans and cis communities alike. The Chaser follows a young teenager at boarding school in his early stages of a crush that warps into a dysmorphic desire. The titular central novella, Stag Dance is a gripping Western centred around an annual courtship ritual amongst timber pirates.
This irreverent, pulsing collection of short stories explores the messy underbelly of gender identity and queer desire with shocking nuance and no easy answers.
The best short story collection I’ve read in ages!
We have a book from the International Booker Prize longlist, the big prize for both authors and translators.
Perfection was written in Italian, but is set in Berlin. Following creatives Anna & Tom as they navigate life & search for meaning as Millennials in a changing city.
Other books mentioned on today’s episode:
No Words for This by Ali Mau
A Life Less Punishing by Matt Heath
See How they Fall by Rachel Paris
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Listen to Jenna’s review with Jonny, in the bFM studio, below.
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Gregory Kan is an Ockham shortlisted author living in Poneke who has released two acclaimed poetry collections; This Paper Boat in 2016 and Under Glass in 2019. He's also a coder who's created an incredible text manipulator called leaves.glass.
Clay Eaters is an eagerly-awaited release by Kan. This is a book of fragments- strands that tenuously link the past, present and future.
Clay Eaters explores the ephemeral nature of our corporeal bodies; spectres springing forty from decaying ends. As all turns to ash and returns to soil, new life awaits birth in the subterranean.
This is an incredible collection of poetry spanning Singapore, Poneke and the US- a perfect morsel when a novel’s too long.
By Nate
On opening Twist the new novel by Colum McCann (author of Time Out favourite Apeirogon) I didn’t quite know what to expect; all I knew was that the plot seemed to be centred on the repairing of an underwater internet cable. To say the least, that is not a subject one often reads about. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to find in Twist a deeply introspective novel on human connection- how it forms and fails.
Twist is a deeply internal novel, the events solely being viewed through the eyes of Fennel, a failing middle-aged writer who is asked to write a magazine article on the boats that repair the world's underwater cable network. Fennel flies out to South Africa to board one of these boats and report on the work that goes on to keep the world connected. It appears an easy job, a simple and crowd pleasing article with an obvious narrative. However, on meeting Conway, the enigmatic and mysterious ship captain, a far more alluring story begins to form. In truth, the novel is more interesting off the boat, which McCann recognises. While the underwater cables maintain the framework of the novel, it is Fennel’s relationship with Conway and the strange currents that swirl around him that are the true focus. As a character he is always something of a cipher; appearing both friendly and distant, steady and uncontrolled, cynical and introspective. I find that these types of characters can appear frustrating in fiction, that their role as an object of fascination can make them feel thin, and the eventual payoff not worthy of the attention given to it. McCann avoids this pitfall, partly through Fennels function as an unreliable narrator; it is never clear, even to himself, how much of his view of Conway is internal projection and how much is earnt.
This is a difficult review to write, as so much of Twist relies on uncertainty- we are meant to unveil the curtain of Conway's life as Fennel does. However, at heart Twist is a novel about the relationships that connect us; how valuable and vulnerable they truly are.
Over a decade since Time Out favourite, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell’s new novel The Antidote is here. Set in 1930’s Nebraska, in the time of The Dust Bowl, Russell weaves together history and magic to tell a tale full of rich characters, stunning writing and gives context to the effects of colonisation and the climate crisis. Highly, highly recommended.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Jonny, in the bFM studio below.
Told with caustic wit, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's long-awaited fourth novel, Dream Count, follows the lives and complex relationships between four Nigerian women.
Fans of Americanah will love Adichie's most recent return to fiction- a witty, funny and clever excision of womanhood and migration.
Adichie explores the moulding of desire, love and friendship and the cracks of tension that emerge via the stratas of race, class and geography.
Clever, poignant and deliciously readable Dream Count cements Adichie as a generational talent akin to Anne Tyler and Sally Rooney.
Today on Nine to Noon, Jenna was in the studio to chat to Kathryn about French author, Laurent Binet’s new novel. Perspectives is an epistolary novel that tells a playful tale of murder, art & moral panic in Renaissance Florence. Featuring real life figures such as Michelangelo, Vasari and the Medicis, this is one for the art history buffs.
Listen below for the full review.
Jenna has so much book news, that we’ve dedicated this week’s segment to it.
First, the shortlist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards has been announced. See the list of finalists here. The ceremony will be held on May 14th.
Secondly, a preview of names have been announced for the Auckland Writers Festival, with the full programme being release this Wednesday 12th March. Kaliane Bradley, Gavin Bishop, Yael van der Wouden, Ben Macintyre and Asako Yuzuki are just the start of an amazing programme.
Finally, New Zealand author Saraid de Silva’s Amma has been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Listen to all the news & more below.
Fundamentally is a debut novel by peace-keeping specialist Nussaibah Younis.
Younis writes about a UN peace-keeping contingent based in Iraq and tells the story through the perspective of a criminologist specializing in deradicalization programmes.
A hilarious piece of auto-fictional satire, Fundamentally skewers the saviour industrial complex and contends with the tangled politics of international relations.
Told with caustic wit, Fundamentally is a funny, highly readable story sure to help any reader out of their summer rut!
Listen to Suri’s call with Jonny in the studio below.
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Jenna & Jonny are in the studio this morning talking literary horror. Old Soul is a mysterious & unsettling tale traversing many countries on the hunt for a mysterious, dangerous woman.
For fans of David Mitchell, Stephen King and Mariana Enriquez, Susan Barker is the author of Time Out favourite, The Incarnations.
First released in the 1960’s, a new Daunt Books edition of Celia Dale’s A Spring of Love has been newly republished.
Esther, a 30 year old ‘spinster’, lives with her Gran and has little reprieve from her mundane routine. She soon meets & starts a courtship with Raymond, a man of artificial charm who weasels his way into her life.
Reminiscent of Mary Gatskill and Shirley Jackson, A Spring of Love is a gripping and hilarious psychological thriller which explores the loneliness and desire of women and the men who prey on them.
You can also listen to Suri’s review of Celia Dale’s previous book, Sheep’s Clothing here.
Abby gives you the low down on Star Gazers by Duncan Sarkies, a local read due for release this Thursday! If you're looking for a piece of fun and satirical fiction, Star Gazers is highly recommended. For fans of political intrigue, comedy and alpacas.
Translated from French, Dear Dickhead is a epistolary tale between cancelled crime author, Oscar and aging actress, Rebecca as they talk about feminism, generational difference and addiction.
Nuanced and very funny, Dear Dickhead is a great next step if you enjoyed All Fours. As Jonny says, ‘it sounds very French!’
Today on Nine to Noon, Jenna was in the studio to chat to Kathryn about some of her favourite 2024 reads.
Listen below for the full review.
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