The Black Monk is the final novel in my series, which are interlinked by theme. It is exploration of what is fiction, what is making fiction, and what is writing, but it is also all about family. There are lots of ideas in this. The Black Monk is a kind of device to link them all together.
In the sunny Friday afternoon, a crowd of fans gathered in The Piano and listened to Charlotte Grimshaw talk about writing her newly-published novel The Black Monk.
The conversation between Grimshaw and Elisabeth Easther began with the genesis of this novel. The award-winning author traced its origins back to her 2009 book Singularity. She recalled how the ideas for The Black Monk "wandered" into her mind while she was writing the short story collection and played with the concept of "Urian Shadow"- the representation of darkness.
When asked about the overlap between The Mirror Book and The Black Monk, Grimshaw explained having grown up in a family of fiction writers, she has always been interested in fiction created out of things that really happened. While writing her own novels, she not only aimed to tell compelling stories but was also interested in exploring the border between fact and fiction. In The Black Monk, she sought to deal with the complexity and encouraged readers to read it as fiction. She emphasised that these characters are fictional although they are based on experiences she had.
Grimshaw deliberately chose the title of The Black Monk and named the main character Alice Liddell to merge those literary devices together. For her, Anton Chekhov's The Black Monk functions as a recurring symbol and motif through the novel. She questioned and challenged the assumption that autobiographic fiction must be solipsistic, arguing that we are all human beings.
"When we write about ourselves, we are writing all of us." she said.
Grimshaw emphasised that in The Mirror Book, she was not simply writing about herself; instead, this book is about families and family dynamics. She compared the figure of a repressive father to the world leader intent on destroying Ukraine as an autonomous entity, linking personal narratives to broader questions of society and geopolitics. She put it this way:
"All my books are about power, about the family, the exercise of power and power listeners."
She elaborated this idea through her early works, such as Opportunity, in which she used the first-person narration in all nineteen short stories. She argued that, although the narrators are different characters, they represented voices of New Zealanders, different ones.
When asked how cathartic the publication of The Mirror Book and The Black Monk had been? Grimshaw said the experiences were quite different. The former is a huge deal as she wrote about herself and revealed what she considered to be true. Despite of facing some backlash from family members, it was well received by general readers. In The Black Monk, she explored the subject of addiction in writing for the first time, although she had long observed her brother's addition in the real life.
The journey from writing a memoir to creating a fictional story based on real events can leave a writer feel vulnerable. Grimshaw admitted that her decision to write these books did not stem from anyone else's suggestion but was partially influenced by the marital crisis described in The Mirror Book. Through both books, she sought to discover herself.
As the conversation continued, Grimshaw revealed more of the ideas behind The Black Monk. According to her, the character Javine, who attempts to make a documentary about addiction by interviewing the family members of an addict, serves to expose society's attitudes towards addiction. Family members often choose to ignore, deny or conceal the problem. For Grimshaw, such denial is harmful because it suggests a refusal to acknowledge the addict's struggles and a reluctance to offer support.
Dr Botherway, the psychotherapist in the novel served as anchor for Alice's process of self-examining, reflecting Grimshaw's experience in the real life. For Grimshaw, going to therapist is a way of opening up herself and talk about herself in an honest way although she was discouraged from doing so.
As an author, Grimshaw is distinctive in her writing style and habits. She has never sought permission from or consulted people before publication as she wanted to present a real self. She described having a strong drive to write fiction and said that her mind works like a machine, constantly collecting data from everyday life and fitting them into a narrative framework from which stories emerge.
After having read a excerpt from the book, Grimshaw briefly discussed how women characters, such as Dr Botherway and Javine, she created reflected her relationship with women in real life. According to her, she formed close friendships with girls when she was young, a theme she explored in The Mirror Book. Later in life, she became more closed up. As a result, she did have emotionally distant and complex women characters in her fiction.
In The Black Monk, parenting is an issue causing broken children. Grimshaw said that she has always been especially interested in motherhood and in understanding how easily it can be done badly. She believes that the power of motherhood is formative in shaping a child's development. Having grown up within these family dynamics herself, she said, this is where her interest in the subject originates.
During the Q&A session, Grimshaw was patient and open to discussion. She elaborated on Anton Chekhov's The Black Monk and discussed the challenges of achieving balance in parenting. When asked about the differences between writing memoir and fiction, she shared some thoughtful reflections:
"When I write fiction, there are no boundaries. I can draw on my experiences from today or memories that I believe to be accurate and build into new stories. This is what fiction writers do. When writing a memoir, however, I have to be cautious and careful and interrogate myself whether the memory is accurate because I put there as a fact. I know that memories can change, be inaccurate and become confabulated."
The event concluded with applauses from the audience. Over the course of an hour, attendees not only heard stories about the writing of The Black Monk but were also immersed in thought-provoking reflections on the self, society, and the nature of storytelling. The discussion raised challenging questions: What is real? What is power? How do writers manipulate them?
If you would like to explore further, consider reading books written by Charlotte Grimshaw.
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