tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3884357133426747280.post8124430526239489042..comments2023-08-19T10:14:53.410-04:00Comments on Chez-Ami: Shout Out To StroutChez Amihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16770834440604616829noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3884357133426747280.post-46308528973353802702009-07-03T11:32:06.013-04:002009-07-03T11:32:06.013-04:00Discovering a new author is always a joy, particul...Discovering a new author is always a joy, particularly when you know nothing about them or their work and when you finally sit down to read their words, the surprise that hits you and the satisfaction that builds ten pages in, twenty pages in, until you reach 50 and you`re hooked. <br /><br />I have bought so much crap in my day that I am very cautious now when I see publishers hype about a new author, or someone that has existed for a while and has a new work. <br /><br />Take Kate Grenville. She`s an Aussie and wrote a book called `The Secret River` a few years back. Won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and it was a great book about one of Australia`s first settlers settling his debt to society and homesteading on Hawkesbury River. <br /><br />Then I read Discovering the Secret River: A Writer`s Memoir, all about how Grenville went about writing her book, how she toyed with the idea of writing a straight biographical book about her great-great-great-grandfather and how it morphed into the novel that it is. She found that writing straight biography was boring writing and fiction made the story come alive. In fact, the Memoir was almost a better read than the novel itself, because it revealed so much about the process of writing and frankly how difficult it is to translate a story onto the page and make it believable for all. <br /><br />Grenville is the first author I ever met in person, attending one of her readings in Canberra while living in Australia in 2005. The room was packed with over 100 people inbibing of wine and nibblies. And even then, her exploration of the explosive meeting of white settler with black aboriginal was controversial. The audience was polite, but there was a black undercurrent that hummed; they didn`t like their dirty laundry being exposed in public. <br /><br />Grenville will, I think, remain with me for the rest of my life. She made an impression on me, of an author who was willing to take a risk, to peel back the layers of polite subterfuge and expose how it probably was when White met Black in the outback of Australia.Leohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10339296590669071730noreply@blogger.com