It’s a crime Bookshops, publishers can play a part
Kiwi writers are undervalued
‘Paul [Cleave] getting shortlisted for the Edgar is like a New Zealand music act being a Grammy nominee, a New Zealand actor an Oscar nominee, or a literary writer being listed for the Man Booker.’ Craig Sisterson
Some of the best crime writers you’ve never read live just down the road – so why aren’t they enjoying the limelight? Eleanor Black reports.
It’s not as if we don’t like crime fiction, because we bloody love it. The fiction bestseller lists tell a gory story: identity mysteries that begin and end with murder, women systematically stalked and slaughtered, emotionally challenged anti-heroes making a hash of things.
For the first half of this year, the dominant players have been The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz, The Obsession by Nora Roberts and a handful of other international titles by Big Names in crime. The usual suspects: Lee Child, Harlan Coben, James Patterson.
A casual reader passing through the airport bookshop or flicking through the newspaper wouldn’t necessarily know that there are some top-flight crime writers living and working here, doing their damnedest to add to the New Zealand canon, book by book, year after year. Paul Cleave. Vanda Symon. Paddy Richardson. Paul Thomas. Alix Bosco (aka Greg McGee). Ben Sanders. Liam McIlvanney. Chad Taylor.
While crime fiction accounts for 31 per cent of annual fiction sales in New Zealand (compared to that other genre favourite, romance, at 8 per cent), it is overseas writers who are taking the lion’s share of sales.
Drill down into the Nielsen BookScan data and you find that of all books sold in New Zealand each year, an average of 7 per cent are crime fiction. And of all the crime fiction sold, just 3 per cent is published here.
By anyone’s measure, that is piddly.
To draw attention to quality New Zealand crime writing, lawyer-turned-journalist Craig Sisterson set up the Ngaio Marsh Award in 2010. He has been heroically pushing the cause ever since, shining a light on newcomers and offering muchneeded encouragement to those people plugging away, uncelebrated, at their kitchen tables and local cafes.
‘‘I’d like to see more readers giving our writers a go, both [at home] and abroad,’’ Sisterson says from his London base.
‘‘I would like to see continued growth in the genre, both in terms of new writers joining the ranks and established writers writing more books.’’
It’s difficult to quantify what success Sisterson has had – whether he has tapped into a trend, or is helping to make one – but there is definitely more fine crime fiction being produced locally now than when he started.
The first year, there were just six novels that qualified for the Ngaio Marsh Award; this year there were more than 30 eligible books. (Winners of the Best Crime Novel and Best First Novel are announced at the WORD Writers and Readers Festival in Christchurch on August 27).
As for getting New Zealanders to read more homegrown crime fiction, that appears to be a slowburner.
World famous, but not in New Zealand
Many local crime writers have already enjoyed far greater success and attention overseas than at home, among them is Christchurch writer Paul Cleave, with a million books sold and famous fans including Mark Billingham and Tess Gerritsen raving about his black humour and compulsive readability.
There was little fanfare when Cleave’s book Joe Victim was shortlisted for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the ‘‘Oscars of crime writing’’, in 2014 alongside Stephen King.
‘‘Paul getting shortlisted for the Edgar is like a New Zealand music act being a Grammy nominee, a New Zealand actor an Oscar nominee, or a literary writer being listed for the Man Booker,’’ says Sisterson, who reckons Cleave has been ‘‘pretty overlooked’’ locally.
When Cleave won the Ngaio Marsh Award last year for his eighth novel Five Minutes Alone (his second Ngaio Marsh Award) he commented that New Zealand was a ‘‘very difficult’’ market to crack.
‘‘It’s frustrating,’’ says Dunedin writer Paddy Richardson (A Year To Learn a Woman, Swimming in the Dark) of readers’ reluctance to pick up local crime. ‘‘There are a few reasons I can think of – books are expensive here, readers have their own favourite overseas writers and if there’s a choice between a known and unknown writer they’ll go with the known.’’
But this apparent lack of interest in local writing and writers is hardly confined to crime writing – or to New Zealand.
‘‘Writers everywhere feel undervalued and overlooked,’’ notes University of Auckland creative writing programme convener Paula Morris, founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature, which seeks to promote the work and ideas of contemporary writers.
‘‘Maybe it’s the combination of the artist’s ego, which is necessary
to convince yourself to keep going, and too much time spent alone,’’ she says. ‘‘Other countries in the world aren’t populated with welladjusted writers who are heralded by the general public as sages.’’ Richardson believes local crime fiction may get less attention from book reviewers than other genres, and says that while some bookshops, especially the independents, do a great job of promoting local writers, there is room for improvement.
‘‘For example, displaying books with a note saying it’s by a local writer, or that it is about this particular district or city seems an easy way of promoting a book, yet it is rarely done,’’ says Richardson.
Fellow Dunedin crime novelist Vanda Symon (Bound, Containment) says some publishers give international crime a better promotional push because they ‘‘see it as a sure thing’’.
‘‘New Zealand crime fiction doesn’t get the same level of attention, so how can readers buy it if they don’t know it exists?’’ asks Symon.
Of course, there are still people around who assume that local crime writing just can’t be as good. Cultural cringe pops up everywhere. But if you thought the crime fiction coming out the United States, United Kingdom and Australia was materially better than what is made here, you’d be wrong.
Karen Chisholm, an Australian judge of the Ngaio Marsh Award, says, ‘‘In terms of the New Zealand marketplace, there have been some stunning examples [of writers] who absolutely punch above their weight, and given enough exposure and marketplace availability would undoubtedly nip at some seriously well-known heels.’’
Cultural cringe
Despite this, the doubt lingers, as it used to around homegrown comedy and music, both of which have benefited from a few noisy advocates and passing time.
It’s not just crime either: sales of New Zealand writing in all fiction categories hovers around 3 to 5 per cent of total sales, according to Nielsen.
‘‘We do have the added disadvantage in New Zealand of many readers seeing literature by New Zealand writers as a subcategory of literature in English, with all that implies,’’ says Morris.
‘‘A reader in Britain doesn’t second-guess buying a book by a British author because it’s ‘only’ published in Britain and therefore can’t be that good.
‘‘Yet readers here seem to need international endorsement, with no notion of the obstacles for writers who write with New Zealand idioms and settings if they try to get published overseas.’’
Not only is New Zealand crime writing of a generally high quality, say its proponents, it is unique. It has its own quirky pineapple lump flavour. While Scandi noir is characterised by bleak settings and emotionally reserved heroes looking to right social ills, Kiwi noir tends to contain deep seams of humour and ambivalence towards power structures.
What is Kiwi noir?
‘‘Many New Zealand crime novels seem to have an underlying distrust of those in authority, even where the hero is a police detective themselves,’’ says Sisterson. ‘‘Police corruption, political machinations, cover-ups crop up all over the place in a wide variety of our local crime tales.’’
There is also a gently applied sense of place apparent in local crime writing, says Sisterson, as characters consume fish and chips and Toffee Pops, and talk about the All Blacks and nuclear-free ships.
Chisholm has noticed more distinctive cultural elements appearing in New Zealand crime in recent years. ‘‘It’s always really pleasing to see that Maori sensibility coming through strongly,’’ she says.
At the same time, New Zealand writers can feel they are risking international success by making their stories too location specific, for fear of putting off readers in middle America and Germany.
‘‘Do you write about what you know and where you come from, or do you bow to the perceived pressure to Americanise your writing or your storytelling to seek out the market?’’ asks Chisholm, who points out that dedicated readers ‘‘loathe’’ that idea.
Symon, both writer and reader of crime fiction, advocates the local approach. ‘‘I love to read books with a regional flavour, so I can get a taste for that country. Just look at how Scandinavian crime fiction has taken off, and a big part of that is because it feels so Scandinavian – it’s not homogenised, could-be-setanywhere stuff.
‘‘As a reader I like to feel the landscape, enjoy the slang, the quirky customs, the way it is different to my world. So as a writer, I have faith that readers from all over the world feel the same way. Diversity and variety is to be treasured.’’
For crime fiction fans and writers there is some good news, and opportunity on the horizon. Following a four-year decline in sales, crime fiction is on the up. Last year, sales of crime fiction in New Zealand rose 7.7 per cent in volume and 3.6 per cent in value.
And here’s an interesting idea: what about adapting some of our best local crime novels for television, as suggested by Morris. ‘‘Why do TV execs need to reinvent the wheel when there’s so much good source material available, with more complex characters and storylines?’’ she asks.
Why indeed?