The 72nd
in this occasional series of reprints from Quote Unquote the
magazine is by Gwen Isaac and is from the November 1995 issue. It is an
interview with Debra Daley
on the occasion of the publication of her first novel. Her latest novel, Turning the Stones,
was published to acclaim in April in the UK by Heron, an imprint of Quercus Books.
The intro read:
Gwen Isaac talks to Debra Daley about here, there and her new novel, The Strange Letter Z.
Z IS FOR IDENTITY
Debra
Daley returned to New Zealand in 1986 to write the obligatory first novel that
everyone has to write about where they came from and their identity. But she
couldn’t write it in England, and her country of origin pestered her deepest
subconscious. Finally she gave in and exorcised her life experience in the form
of The Strange Letter Z. Published
here by Penguin and next year in London by Bloomsbury, it is a confident,
predominantly psychological novel, revolving around a complex romance that
begins and ends in New Zealand.
When she
left she had felt it to be “dull and mean-spirited”, with very little tolerance
for people with artistic inclinations. After travelling incessantly, she needed
to come back and see how it had changed. Sucked back into New Zealand she
arrived with Universal Drive tucked
safely under her arm. A TV drama about car-crazy kids in West Auckland, it had
already screened here, making her known in the industry.
Daley was
able to settle into a prolific phase of screenwriting, and after a few years, The Strange Letter Z. Following the
parallel lives of the two protagonists, Alexis and Nerida, it begins by
describing their respective dysfunctional childhoods in New Zealand that cause
them to escape their past. Alexis, ambitious and self-obsessed, becomes a
successful linguist who harbours a dark secret. Simultaneously, beautiful but
aimless Nerida drifts into a fruitful modelling career. They are fated to fall
into a love affair from which they can never derive happiness until they gain
self-knowledge.
Daley
says she was interested in two characters who seemed to have everything going
for them. “With intelligence and good looks they move smoothly through the
world,” she says, but adds emphatically, “This is not enough because you still
have to know yourself.”
Losing
her accent ensured that in England she was never questioned about her origins.
And frankly she wasn’t even homesick for New Zealand. “For me New Zealand just
didn’t feature,” she says — but then something strange would keep happening.
She would open a magazine or a newspaper and the letter Z would jump out at
her. At the time this confused her, but she soon realised she must have been
looking for the word “New Zealand”.
This
almost metaphysical occurrence was a catalyst for her to consider the country
she grew up in. Like Nerida and Alexis, she needed to return to rediscover her
identity. The letter Z is used as sustained symbolism throughout the novel. Its
ominous shape weakens the resolve of the characters to dismiss their past
identity.
To Daley’s
surprise, she found it impossible to write fiction in London. She had to return
to do it. Riding on the profile gained from Universal
Drive, she began writing fast turn-around television (Gloss, Open House and Peppermint Twist), as well as writing TV
drama and film-script editing. Presently she derives an income from medical
copywriting and writing newsletters for the Auckland Area Health Board. It is near-impossible
to earn a living from writing here, so all these activities buy her time for
her greatest love. “In the perfect world, where I won Lotto, all I would do is
write fiction,” she says passionately.
She uses
an analogy in the book about Nerida’s training as a photographer being like
that of a concert pianist having to do finger exercises for this big moment in
front of the audience. For this, says Daley, you must be at your most brilliant
— which only comes from practice. She absolutely revelled in the contrast of
writing a novel: “Suddenly there was no one looking over my shoulder with a
brief, which was very liberating”.
The book
took her four years to write, while she fulfilled other commitments. A heavy
manuscript was the product of her first draft as she found herself including
all her life experience. “I realised to sustain a career as a novelist you don’t
have to put all your eggs in one basket,” she says. So she completely rewrote
it, dropping a lot of material, and leaving the final version of The Strange Letter Z highly edited.
Just as
Daley’s restlessness always expressed itself in compulsive travelling, Alexis
and Nerida country-hop through the book, providing a range of different
backdrops for the progress of their relationship. They drift from one
environment to another in an attempt to reinvent themselves, but also because
they can no longer cope with their present situation: “They are constantly
thinking things are a little difficult here so let’s move on and perhaps there
will be some external circumstances that will make some sense of my life.”
Daley is
concerned about how people become co-dependent and end up becoming part of each
other’s fiction about how to live life. This becomes dangerous as the other
person is instrumental in validating your story. Daley’s theories of
self-definition through others link in with her interest in human happiness.
Nerida and Alexis find happiness through one another, but ultimately remain
unsatisfied within themselves “even though he could lie full-length in the dirt
and kiss the footprints she had made. . . How could you love a woman utterly and
still, it wasn’t enough?”
Daley
asserts that our best achievement is to make ourselves as happy as we can. “By
interacting positively with other human beings we will increase the quotient of
satisfaction in the world,” she maintains. Fate is a useless notion to believe
in, in this context. “If you identify the locus of control as external, you are
doomed to believe that everything that happens to you is incidental. You must
become the writer of your own life by realising nothing is destined to be.”
Despite
her extensive screenwriting, she says that with The Strange Letter Z she set out to write something that possibly
couldn’t be filmed: “I just wanted to get into the literary world totally, by
writing something very cognitive.” She feels she certainly couldn’t write the screenplay because it’s over for
her now.
Already
her mind is focusing on her next novel, which will be more story-focused and driven
by narrative. Its direction has been influenced by her love of genre work, in
particular, thrillers. “I didn’t think it would be a thriller, but I am
motivated by the satisfaction of thriller,” she says.
The
epigraph, taken from Balzac’s short story “Z Marcas”, marks the strong purpose
of the novel: “Do you not discern in that letter Z an adverse influence? Does
it not prefigure the wayward and fantastic progress of a storm-tossed life? . .
. Marcas! Does it not hint of some precious object that is broken with a fall,
with or without a crash?” In the story, the letter Z in Marcas’ name becomes a
badge of fate, like a defect that handicaps him for the rest of his life.
Marcus’ tragedy, like that of Nerida and Alexis, is he believes he is helpless
to alter his future, and therefore won’t. They were born, says Daley, with
particular personalities that lend to torment, stress and trauma, which make
them accepting of their fate.
Alexis’s
greatest moment comes at the end of the book when he decides he will no longer
accept this storm-tossed life, letting his love for Nerida assist in discarding
his destructive persona. As Daley writes, “You love someone to overcome
desolation of the soul.”
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