Bookathon - G

 Goosebumps. Garfield. Geronimo Stilton. Sorry, those are not authors. 

Sometimes I read things I don't like, but I'm glad I read them anyway. It gives you a new perspective on things, Reading about your hometown can be quietly discomforting, especially if its from before you were born so there's no nostalgia about it, but a kind of reckoning. If there really were taniwhas in my backyard, I'll want to know about it.

My pick for today is G - Maurice Gee. No he didn't write about taniwhas, he was too Pakeha for that. He wrote about mysterious creatures who lived Under the Mountain that wanted to take over Auckland. Or the Halfmen of O, or The Fat Man, who was this pervert that lived in Henderson but somehow go incorporated into a novel for children. He changed the name to Loomis, of which I don't know why, as I'd never heard of a place called Loomis and thought he should have been honest and kept Henderson. There is no shame in coming from Henderson surely. 

Maurice Gee's Henderson/Loomis is peopled with shady types, crooks, and crims. It's the wild west far from Remuera, the North Shore and all that is respectable. In the olden days before the motorway came, it was a small country town where people lived in quiet desperation because they couldn't afford the fancier suburbs. There were  vineyards and orchards where Dally's brewed their plonk...sherry, port, cider and moonshine. 

People drowned in the creek. 

When I pick up a novel by Maurice Gee I fully expect that someone will meet a violent end somehow and their body will end up in the Henderson creek. 

I started reading the Plum trilogy which is lauded as the Great Kiwi Novel. It's a saga about one family, the patriarch is a Presbyterian minister who ends up losing his faith but still wants to practice as an agnostic. The mother is a thwarted novelist and the dad is a boxing champion, much like Maurice Gee's own family. I am sure you can read his own memoir and put the pieces together, its actually more fascinating than anything he made up himself. All this drama happens on Great North Road and specifically Newington Road where the Gees lived, which is just above the creek and near the Catholic school. Apparently there was a rivalry between Catholics and non-Catholics back in the day and several class wars going on. It sounds really grim and I am not surprised that Gee left town to live in sunny Nelson. He could have just moved sideways into Sunnyvale but I think he had to get out.

I want to write the Great Kiwi Novel too. In my version, Henderson Square is the centre of town until it is taken over by Australians and turned into 'West City Shoppingtown' and some skulduggery happens where all the profits are siphoned off overseas. The mayor of Henderson wakes up one day when his rival incumbent reveals his plans to sell Henderson creek down the river and turn it into a tourist attraction for Shortland Street fans. It's up to the Twin Streams brigade to stop them, so the oldies at the Waitakere Gardens start a march in protest. They want to grow old and die there, and they don't want anyone blocking their cherished view of the Waitakere Ranges. 

If you go down to the Waitakere civic centre today, by the railway I'm sure there's a little walk of fame somewhere on the footpath where Maurice Gee has his star.