THE REHEARSAL

by Eleanor Catton, Victoria University Press. Man Booker Prize winner (for The Luminaries) Eleanor Catton is roughly the same age as me. When I was 22 I was working in the Dunedin Library. Catton had just published The Rehearsal, her debut novel. I read it, hot off the press, in 2008, with awe and envy. At primary school I wanted to be an author when I grew up. In high school I abandoned that idea in favour of becoming an actor. At 22 I wasn’t an author or an actor. And here was Catton writing about this world of performing arts that I still wished I was a part of. I think this work, more than the story itself, was one of the things that helped propel me to Auckland. I’m still not working on a novel, or treading the boards, but I love my work. And for the record, I now admire Eleanor Catton as a national treasure. If you haven’t read The Luminaries you should add it to your summer reading list too.