Kicking off my first WORD event of 2024 was Steve Braunias’ discussion of his newest (and sadly last… or is it?) book in his true-crime trilogy, The Survivors: True stories of death and desperation. For a mid-Friday, there was a nice turnout at The Piano. Having recently read The Survivors, I felt lucky to be there, surviving my own life, alive, happy, and ready to hear about what drove the book.
Host Philip Matthews opened the session by joking that he and Braunias, who write for The Press and The NZ Herald respectively, are survivors themselves - by way of managing to still be employed as journalists in the year 2024. Braunias’ impressive record of 13 books in a little over 20 years (whilst still working as a journalist AND as a books editor at Newsroom - how does he have any free time!) is a testament to how deserving he is of his renown as a writer, even after all these years (Braunias’ WORD profile claims he is “one of the oldest people in NZ literature”).
But there really is an element to journalism that requires tough skin. Any true crime reporting is bound to be dark, simply due to the difficult subject matter. My recent reading experience of The Survivors, though enjoyable, was not always easy; most of the stories are bleak, or end in death. Matthews asked about the title - why “The Survivors”, and what did it mean to Braunias when writing the book?
To my surprise, Braunias noted that he found this book to be the most positive and hopeful one he’s written to date. Its overarching theme was rising out of misery, anguish and unhappiness, and a sense of survival pervades the work. Hearing this, I had to agree: there were moments of light dotted throughout, profound and moving, which really got you believing in humanity again. On the flip side, some subjects in the book did not survive, and were killed by people making extremely fast, inevitable decisions. Gone, just like that. A chill went through the audience - it’s hard to contemplate how quickly a life can end.
The setting, and some real New Zealand characters
Much of the book takes place in Auckland and its courtrooms. Matthews asked about Braunias’ approach to Auckland - did he see it as an outsider? Braunias replied that many do - it’s too weird, too big, too rich, too “freaked out on methamphetamine” for people to feel like they belong (I myself always feel as if I am in a different country altogether on the rare occasions I visit). Though Braunias adores Auckland, he had to make a concerted effort to get to know the place, and this book was the perfect catalyst. The pages are full of walking - considering Braunias cannot drive, his creative process involved tracing the steps of those he wrote his stories about in an attempt to better understand what happened to them.
One case in particular involved a fascinating topic, that of the “innocent agent”. It’s an old medieval term to refer to someone who acted for someone else absent of their own free will, like a puppet or obedient dog. In most cases that innocent agent would be a child, but the story in The Survivors follows a man, somewhat mentally impaired, who was heavily influenced by a woman in his life. She convinced him to set a house on fire, and so he set out from a bar in central Auckland at midnight, walking three to four hours to his destination, hauling the matches and milk bottles filled with petrol which he would use to carry out her plan. That plan went horribly wrong - tucked under the house he set himself alight, and agonisingly burned to death. Braunias, fascinated by the absence of free will, retraced the steps of this man on three different occasions, both in daylight and midnight (a “horrifying” experience). He got a real sense of the beauty and terror of Auckland, the violence and the loneliness, while on that pilgrimage - and it certainly shines throughout the book.
The Survivors isn’t just about Auckland, though; it’s a comment on the New Zealand character. Our decency, our haste, our poverty, and our stupidity. Perhaps one character who exemplified our decency and our poverty was Volker Pilgrim, a German eccentric who lived in backpackers’ hostels, collected pencil stubs, was strongly loved by the community around him, and had some very eccentric beliefs, including the idea that his life energy was being drained as he slept by vampires. It’s the reason he moved to New Zealand in the first place - to escape these vampires - and why he had to keep moving.
Though Braunias doesn’t believe in energy-sucking vampires, he felt a connection with Pilgrim, particularly in the way that he was driven wholly by writing. Pilgrim wrote excessively, and though it was convoluted and confusing, Braunias thought it was genius, and written with utter conviction. The man lived and expressed himself on his own terms, and unlike other eccentrics (who are “generally pains in the f***ing a**! They smell! They have stupid right-wing opinions! They’re racist!), Pilgrim made other people’s lives better. This is one of the pockets of hope that lingers within the pages of The Survivors. There are those out there who survive their lives just the way they want to, and they make deep, meaningful impressions on their communities.
Balancing tricky elements in true crime
Where there is light, there is also darkness, and inevitably the topics turned in that direction. True crime, by its nature, has an ugly, exploitative side that’s hard to avoid. In trials there are victims involved, and family and friends heavily affected by what transpires. Yet outsiders are still driven by some desperate need to know the full story. Matthews posed the question to Braunias: How do you balance empathy alongside that inevitable risk of exploitation? The answer was that it was something to struggle with every day. Those conflicting values are visible throughout The Survivors, but (in my humble opinion) were balanced well.
People aren’t bad for wanting to read about terrible or shocking things, Braunias reassured the audience – it’s a natural curiosity. It’s fascinating. Whether it has a wider significance than that, though, he’s not so sure. It’s something he’s thought about a lot recently, while covering the “deeply exploitative” Polkinghorne case. If you’re not familiar (though you’d have to have avoided practically all NZ media to do so), Philip Polkinghorne is currently on trial for the death of his wife, who he claims committed suicide. Much of the intrigue about this case has to do with Polkinghorne’s personal life, including his trysts with a sex worker which continued after his wife’s passing. Braunias compared this to the Grace Millane case a few years back, which also attracted a lot of media attention. The similarities are in how the public heavily focus on the actions of the accused immediately following the death, and not the actual death itself.
It speaks to how we as a species are fascinated by strange human behaviour, by spectacle. It’s nice to lead our own, bland lives and then learn all about those who live in ways more differently than we could even imagine. That’s part of what makes The Survivors so compelling, I think - we’re drawn to examine these alternate ways of living even if we do not understand them (which was certainly the case for Braunias when covering two horrific cases of infanticide in the latter chapters of his book). In this way, non-fiction becomes more intoxicating than fiction.
Throughout the event, I noted Braunias’ strong narrative voice, which matches his writing. He was softer-spoken than I thought he would be, but is clearly a natural-born storyteller. The audience gave their rapt attention at all times, and frequently burst into laughter following the clever quips that were delivered throughout the session (Braunias has most recently paraphrased the Crown’s description of Polkinghorne as a “repulsive sex gnome”). A lot of people have told Braunias that he speaks just like how he writes. He said he doesn’t see it himself, but I did. The balance between seriousness and humour, the thoughtfulness, insight, empathy - it came across in both his work and his talk. I was left inspired to read more of his work, and I highly encourage others to do the same.
All in all, it was a fantastic event. Before the book signing, there was some time for questions at the end, with one answer summing up the session nicely. When queried on the long-time debate of nature vs nurture, Braunias said:
“It’s not nature vs nurture, it’s nature plus nurture.”
And that’s easy to see in The Survivors. We’re products of the world around us, our upbringing, our circumstances, and something elusive and innate. They all combine in some inextricable manner to create each of us, individuals who survive their life in various different ways. Some survive longer than others. Some make a big impact - whether positive or negative. Some bring darkness, and some bring hope. It was quite beautiful to be in a room of survivors on that early Friday afternoon and ruminate on the funny little creatures we are.
Watch this session on demand until 29 September.
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