On Saturday, WORD Christchurch audiences were treated to a robust discussion between Pip Adam, Dominic Hoey and Juanita Hepi, getting their teeth into the theme of the salt of the earth: working class characters in fiction.
'He wasn't invited to the party after the show because they'd just spent an hour humiliating him on live television. They think he's pathetic. They hate him.'
HE has everything. HE can buy many small countries. HE can stop world hunger. What HE wants is for somebody cool and popular to laugh at HIS jokes.
pip adam is a mind-flayer of a writer. Her fifth novel, Kluge, is a response to AI learning from her work. In Kluge, a glitching AI narrator, speaking in phrases you could almost click on, tells the story of a billionaire (who may or may not be Elon Musk). In the form of a stand-up routine (!) the AI relates a tale of workplace breakdown in an imploding tech company in the context of the lethargy of humanity faced with disastrous climate change, unchecked wealth, stolen land and a revolution that didn't change a thing.
"A car drove past and slowed as the family inside craned their necks to get a look at the body."
"Only cowards and the weak hearted call the pigs," (Dad) used to say, as if he was quoting the bible or something. ...Anyway, the cops came and stood around and we all went back inside in case they were going to get accusatory about the dead guy. We never found out who the body was. But by the end of the month another one would turn up.
Rapper and author Dominic Hoey's fifth book, 1985, is a testament to tough-as lower socio-economic communities sticking together to get through each day. It's a disarming story told from the perspective of Obi, an eleven-year-old boy living in Grey Lynn, in the year of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Hoey's amazing one-liners impart a philosophy well beyond Obi's tender years as he tries to help his family by winning the cash prize in a local video game competition.
Juanita Hepi (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngātiwai, Ngāpuhi), identifies as an artivist and storyteller, using many formats to inform her work.
What's the kaupapa about? How does working class and real life collide in literature?
pip rocked into the venue wearing a Wellington Unions t-shirt. Work is integral to her family life, she says. Her father still jokes about her going back to hairdressing. She muses on the fact that we sell our labour, make tentative relationships with people then points out the dichotomy of relative success.
Dominic corrects that he grew up poor, rather than working class. His Dad didn't much like working, and his Mum didn't either:
"They did whatever the eff they wanted, which was why they were poor. Communities like these are where the mean stories are."
Juanita adds that her whānau think she'll get over the hobby. For her, being working class meant that life was about bread-and-butter issues; putting food on the table.
Where did you go to school?
It's like a whakapapa, this school thing. Dominic got kicked out of Western Springs College and went to Metro (Auckland Metropolitan College), where, like his parents, he did whatever the eff he wanted: wrote, and played drums.
pip went to Selwyn College, which was different than it is today. It took expelled students from private schools then. She jokes that if she said it quickly it sounded like Solway College. Asked to leave, she was offered a hairdressing apprenticeship, which made it look like a managed transition.
What classy things do you do now, that teenage you would have thought you were a dick?
Dominic: Moisturise my face. (hoots of laughter)
pip: I go to a hairdresser. Shower. (And she loves marching!)
You've 'made it' now. Are you still working class?
Dominic: "There's an attitude in publishing that you have to leave behind your class position, your identity, but not other identities." He justifies retention of his working class roots as the simple fact that you can't write from any other viewpoint than what you know "It's not like I make any money from this sh*t anyway."
pip's stance is that the degradation of public funding and philanthropy in the arts is trying to detach writers from other workers; as if they're doing it for love. She feels she has a lot more in common with someone who's working. "It's the only life I know, but I'm rich now." (Meaning, she still has a small amount of her Ockham prize money left.)
Juanita adds, "It's a weird concept to deconstruct yourself from whānau and your communities. I can't just leave the brown at the door."
It feels like they want the stories but not the point of view, says Dominic, who never aspired to doing festivals.
"To sit in the struggle, to be hungry, is to be working class, not a starry-eyed window gazer."
How to keep these writers safe when we bring them into the art world?
Dominic: We want our mates to tell these stories, but we don't want to put them into unsafe spaces. He knew a gifted rapper who went off the rails; years later he wanted to write a book about it. Would he be set up to fail? When mates came to one of Dominic's events one of them heckled and the other almost got in a fight. You don't know middle class rules until you break them.
There's no duty of care, says pip, for authors who bare their souls about mental health, addiction, trauma and shame - there are a lot of first books out there from people who need more support. Because places like this (an auditorium full of eyes on you) are effing terrifying!
Why do we do it?
pip finds pleasure, community and joy in her work. Dominic too. Juanita found that Dominic's book 1985 brought her closer to the truth.
Is there a motif, a character, a symbol that keeps popping up in your books?
pip: My six books are all one book about not understanding my body. Am I a building? Am I a giant? Kluge is about an entity watching its body. Does my body look right in this place/occupation? Juanita adds, Am I the centre of the issue? Or is it reconciling the politicisation of my body in this world?
Dominic: Friendship, family, humour - the only thing between you and rock bottom. I celebrate the rangatira of these communities.
At this point we began to discuss the current struggle of the nation - in particular job cuts and the bashing of beneficiaries. We had to have a moment. And it was a moment of solidarity.
Am I right?
More
- Read books by pip adam
- Read books by Dominic Hoey
- Literary Prizes and Book Awards in Aotearoa
- Read Kiwi Fiction
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