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NZCYA Author Chats: Tessa Duder
In this series, one of our keen Hooked on NZ Books or School Library reviewers chats with an author shortlisted for the upcoming NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults about their mahi and kaupapa. This time, Kyra Johnson from John Paul II High School chats with literary legend Tessa Duder about her latest book 'The Sparrow', which is shortlisted for the Young Adult Fiction award.
Kia Ora, Tessa! Could you tell us a bit about yourself, like how you went from international swimmer to published author?
From swimmer to five years as journalist with the Auckland Star newspaper; to the obligatory O.E. and marriage at 23; to two years as feature writer for the Daily Express, London; to four daughters while living with civil engineer husband in London, Pakistan and Turangi; back in Auckland for debut junior novel Night Race to Kawau in 1982, Alex in 1987 and around 50 books in the nearly 40 years since.
What were the personal inspirations for The Sparrow?
Research for my 2015 biography of Auckland founding settler Sarah Mathew left me with a deep interest in early Auckland, particularly how the first European families coped. The Sparrow imagines how a young escaped convict with no family might have survived in a new, raw colony. But also, I married into a family that is proud of its strong identity in Auckland; shipwrecked Devonshire sailor Thomas Duder was one of first settlers in 1840 and with wife Margaret had eight children. The family’s history – and Auckland’s – have always been important to our wider whanau. There’s also an echo of my mother’s family, her grandfather Charles Wycherley who emigrated with wife and 10 children (sic) in 1882 and established a successful saddlery in Wellington; in The Sparrow, Harriet’s father is a saddler.
Looking back, do you think that your journey to England with your family had any influence on the composition of The Sparrow?
Certainly the years I’ve lived in England and a number of visits since have influenced my writing, especially the backstory of The Sparrow (Harriet’s life in her Sussex village and the transportation to Australia). That 1946 voyage to England, me aged five, at sea over a month, I remember for the gale off North Cape, the seasickness, the tedium. Crossing the Tasman in 2013 on the youth development ship Spirit of New Zealand provided a unique experience of an ocean passage under sail.
During your planning of The Sparrow, at what point did you decide on Harriet’s double identity?
No particular point that I remember, although it probably arose when editor Harriet Allan encouraged me to make more of Harriet’s Cascades prison backstory and what happened after her escape. Initially I hesitated: perhaps cross-dressing was an overused cliché of historical fiction, but with the impetus provided by the wise prison warden Martha, it seemed justified and right for the story. Most likely Harriet would not have survived as a vagrant, a homeless girl so vulnerable to casual misogyny, rape or worse.
How do you feel the use of Harriet/Harry helps to challenge gender stereotypes of the time the story is set in?
I gave Harriet a certain naivety, realising with some surprise how much freer and more mobile and risk-taking she could be in boy’s trousers, not hobbled by long skirts and shawls; conversely, how constrained and disempowered she feels when needing to resume female dress. For women even to take their boots off and show some ankle, never mind calves, was unacceptable. It’s hard for today’s teenagers to imagine this level of prudery, or the proscribed, unfulfilled lives women lived at all levels of English society, from the very poor to the pampered luxury of say, Bridgerton. The challenge for a writer is to balance our 21st century outrage against what were the established sexual expectations and customs of mid 19th century England.
Were some of the heavier scenes in The Sparrow more emotionally difficult to write?
If you choose to write about the brutalities of transportation, convict life and survival as a fugitive in a colonial setting, then it’s inevitable and necessary that there will be ‘heavy scenes’ that require some heart-breaking research into real-life stories, and fortitude when writing those fictive scenes. But actually, the most emotionally taxing scenes for me involved Harriet’s parents: their distress at her sentencing, their tearful parting, the sense of unimaginable loss and acceptance that they would know nothing of their daughter’s fate for probably years, if ever.
Did your planning for this book differ greatly from other books you have written?
By taking Harriet Allan’s excellent advice and expanding Harriet’s story as girl from a Sussex village who becomes an escaped convict, I then needed to juggle two timeframes, and be very accurate about ages and dates. So it was more complicated that the straight linear storytelling of my last fiction, the Tiggie Tompson series. The Alex series was told in difference voices, enjoyable and challenging to write, but The Sparrow is entirely Harriet’s story.
Did you have a favourite author as a young adult yourself?
Back in the 1950s, there was no ‘young adult’ fiction as such! I went straight from Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild to Tolstoy’s War & Peace and Anna Karenina, the short stories and plays of W. Somerset Maugham (not read much now), Bernard Shaw’s plays (ditto), also giggled my way through Richard Gordon’s Doctor in the House series.
Has your writing had any significant impact in your life?
A huge and wonderful impact! When I finally published Night Race to Kawau in 1982 after four years’ work, I had no idea of the many rewards that awaited: getting to know writers like Margaret Mahy et al, the book festivals which began in the 1990s, hundreds of school visits, travel to Australia, USA and all over New Zealand, many years’ involvement with great people in Storylines and the Society of Authors, some awards and civil honours. Feedback from readers, hearing a book of mine has given pleasure - priceless. Not so much money, but enough, and there are far greater rewards than money.
Do you find writing within a historical context difficult?
In some ways it’s easier, particularly if you’ve done enough research (essential) and can use the characters and events of the historical record to provide a framework. Most of the events in The Sparrow, and quite a few of the personalities like John Logan Campbell, Sarah Mathew and Governor Hobson come straight from what is known of Auckland’s early days. The founding day, the first regatta, the threat of Nga Puhi invasion and Hobson’s arrival in January, the first land sales in April 1841, the relationships with local Māori, are all documented. Writing historical fiction requires you to be a magpie, picking up anecdotes, opinions, dates, people’s motivations and backstories etc from wherever, to then create something believable.
If you could offer one piece of advice to the upcoming and aspiring authors, what would it be?
Accepting that behind every successful book is hard work, research, persistence and courage. And when it’s done, when you hold your advance copy in your hand, much joy.
