Land grievance at heart of crime novel
Award winning author, screen writer and director Michael Bennett's debut novel is a spine chilling crime story focusing on a serial killer and the female police officer who pursues him. Like Bennett, both are Māori. At the core of the plot is a land grab grievance dating back to New Zealand's early colonisation. JILL NICHOLAS asks Bennett about the book and his motivation for writing it.
Your award winning non-fiction work In Dark Places highlighted wrongly convicted Teina Pora’s fight for justice. What influence did this have on you writing the fictional Better the Blood?I inherited a passion for social justice from my mum and dad, and being part of the fight for freedom for Teina Pora honed that to a fine edge. What happened to Teina devastates me. There's a direct line between telling his story and this novel. Teina's story was about real and awful problems with the justice system's treatment of Māori; with Better the Blood I can use fictional thriller storytelling.
With so many complex plot strands and characters how much time from conception to completion did you spend on this? The idea has been bubbling for a while. I've been blessed with feedback and support from several wonderful collaborators. The first draft was completed in winter 2020, in a little shack on a wild Hokitika beach that I escaped to between Covid lockdowns. I worked with extraordinary editor Katherine Armstrong of Simon & Schuster UK in refining the manuscript during our [Auckland] last endless lockdown, late 2021. You write passionately about the mamae (pain) of colonists’ land confiscations. Is it fair to brand you a Mā ori land activist?
I don't pretend to place myself in the orbit of the actual activists — the Hawkes, the Eva Rickards, everyone who walked a step with Dame Whina, all those who put themselves on the line and on the frontline, who enunciate the wrongs so eloquently. I'm an artist; if in some small way Better the Blood might add to their voices, I'm over the moon. Retribution for perceived past wrongs is behind the killings in the book. How difficult was it to portray a violent killer?
A violent killer is someone who derives satisfaction from inflicting injury or suffering. In Better the Blood, Māori detective Hana Westerman comes to understand that the person she is hunting is no psychopath — the opposite; every time they kill, it rips them apart. As the hunter closes on the hunted, the Māori cop (and
I hope, the reader) realises the killer is speaking important and undeniable truths about historic injustice and inequality today — even while she knows she has to stop them killing again.
It’s 47 years since Dame Whina Cooper led the hikoi protesting the continuing loss of Mā ori land. Do you consider the situation’s any better today? We have a settlement process, but context matters. In real terms, settlements equate to but a tiny fraction of the actual value of land taken. Famously, the total of all Treaty settlements across the past 25 years equals two months of superannuation payments.
On Dame Whina, did you have her in mind when a cardigan-wearing kuia leading a land claim protest became central to your storyline? That never occurred to me! When I write, I vividly see the characters moving through rooms or streets or landscapes; I see the fear or joy in their eyes, I hear their voices. It's nice to think Dame Whina's iconic cardigan might have been floating around my subconscious when I was dreaming and writing the heroic kuia character!
A television series of Better the Blood is in development. Who would you choose for the lead roles? We are in a golden age of Māori performance. I feel so unbelievably blessed that when we come to casting the series we will have an embarrassment of acting riches for every role.