Truth stranger than fiction

A Cambridge author is getting quite a reputation around the town - by putting people and places into her latest romantic comedy.

Rural Cambridge is not usually thought of a site for shirt-ripping, hot-blooded passion.

And certainly not your typical setting for a romantic comedy novel.

Local author Michelle Holman's new fiction book, Divine, is loosely modelled on the town.

There are hunky dairy farmers, seduction scenes in hay barns, and flirtation on farm races.

Divine is Holman's second novel, following from her debut Bonkers.

It's a funny, and at times blush-inducing read, as captivating as any titles in the chick-lit genre by overseas best sellers such as Helen Fielding or Marian Keyes.

But what is surprising - and refreshing are all the local references.

Protagonist Tara, a sassy Aucklander who flees to the Waikato after her husband leaves her, drowns her sorrows with New Zealand wine such as Mills Reef and Kim Crawford.

Her favourite fashion designer is Cambridge's Ooby Ryn, and her favourite novelist is Waikato-based Deborah Challinor. She listens to Kiwi band Opshop and watches homegrown television show Outrageous Fortune. Even Waikato Draught gets a mention in the book (a favourite tipple of naughty pony Magic, who sneakily gulps down an unattended bottle of wine in one laugh-out-loud scene).

Holman, a Waikato area health nurse and mother of two, lives on a lifestyle block at Monovale, just outside Cambridge.

The local references are on purpose.

"I don't think we make enough of this country," says Holman, as she prepares a pot of coffee. "I think we are very glib, it's a wonderful place, but we don't always realise it. We need to spend time abroad then come back to realise how special and totally unique New Zealand is. I always try to support local talent."

The story is fiction, but the town of Divine is located in the Waikato, and its description will sound familiar to locals.

"I wasn't thinking about Cambridge when I wrote it," says Holman. "But later, I thought, `this is Cambridge,' with a main street with flower roundabouts at each end. And the shoe shop in there is probably Soelle. I love it. But it's all crept in subconsciously."

There's a clock tower outside the town hall, a village green and a selection of shops, cafes, restaurants and banks housed in old buildings, with "wrought-iron lampposts painted dark green, hung with flower baskets".

Robyn Brooks, the designer behind fashion shop Ooby Ryn, was chuffed to be mentioned twice in the book.

"I'm stoked," says Brooks, an up-and-comer who has twice appeared at Air New Zealand Fashion Week.

Brooks was approached by Holman after her first book, Bonkers, came out. She was working on Divine and wanted an Ooby Ryn dress for Tara to wear in a special scene. Brooks created a design based off a combination of dresses from her summer 2006/07 collection. "It was really cool, and I love the new book," says Brooks.

The story revolves around Remuera trophy wife, Tara Whitehead, who is devastated after her husband Richard announces he is leaving her to become a woman.

Holman says the idea was triggered by a documentary about transgender people getting sex reassignment surgery. "It got me thinking, what would it be like if your husband decided to leave you to become a woman? How would somebody deal with that? Tara become that somebody."

Forced to leave home so Richard can pay for his surgery, Tara moves with daughter Jen to the quiet rural village of Divine. Beset with financial worries, a friend finds her a telephone sex job under the new name Mistress Fury. There are run-ins with a handsome dairy farmer, a dodgy businessman and lots of other eccentrics.

Holman says her characters are fictional, and only one is based on a real person, although that hasn't stopped people asking "is such and such this person" laughs Holman.

Carolyn Parkes, the owner and manager of Cambridge's Deli on the Corner, was the inspiration behind Divine character Corrine Cathcart from Mud in Your Eye Cafe.

Parkes is excited about the new book. "It's wonderful," says Parkes. "I loved Bonkers and I love this one as well. We are very proud of Michelle."

She recognises some of her town in the book, although says Holman would be horrified if anyone thought other characters were based on real Cambridge residents. "It's about here, well, it's not really about here. It's not based on real characters, although I can see people around town it could be, even though Michelle has never met them. It's definitely fiction, and a smaller place than Cambridge."

The town is buzzing about the talented author in their midst. On Thursday they held a launch party at Wrights Bookshop, and Parkes was doing the catering, complete with lamingtons and sausage rolls, which featured in the novel. Locals were dressing up like Divine characters, in outrageous heels like Tara or in all brown, like the rugged love interest Gil.

Hamish Wright, from Wrights Bookstore, says even though he is a bloke, he "loved" Divine.

"It's light, it's entertaining and funny and you really empathise with the characters."

Wright says it is great to see New Zealand bands, wines, designers and places reflected in New Zealand fiction. "It's a sign of our maturity," he says. "Although I'm completely frustrated when people think of New Zealand fiction and it's only Janet Frame and Katherine Mansfield. They are dead, even though they are great writers. What about living writers such as Lloyd Jones and Michelle Holman and Sarah-Kate Lynch who are putting out really good fiction? We always look back rather than the present."

 

FOR A FORMER West Auckland girl, Michelle Holman is quite at home in the Waikato country.

She moved to the outskirts of Cambridge five years ago with husband Les, son McKenzie, now 14, and daughter Fleur, 11. Les had just completed his MBA, and got a job in the construction industry.

Their house is up a long driveway, shielded by trees. Two horses graze in a paddock beside the house, and farmland stretches behind, up to the green peaked hills of Kairangi.

One of her horses, Magnum, a 30-year-old chestnut gelding, makes mention in the book. "I came out and told him I was going to make him famous, and he walked off and farted," laughs Holman, patting his handsome face as he munches on an apple. "Some gratitude."

In fact, there is a lot about her surroundings that feature in the book. Holman points to her neighbour's hay barn. "That's where Tara and Gil get together, I told my neighbour that he will never look at that hay barn the same again."

She points to a line of trees and a farm race. "That's the race where Richard has his way with Tara against that tree, and over there is the washing line where (pony) Magic pokes his nose through, wiping mud and peeing everywhere. I also used the house, and that's the bathroom where Gil stands underneath the window talking to Tara in the bath."

For Holman, her home is a landscape overlaid with the invisible cloak of her story.

She says she has always loved reading and writing.

She wrote her own stories while in intermediate school.

In class, she was the bookworm with a novel tucked under her desk, secretly reading.

"In my Form Five or Six school report, my teacher said, `if Michelle paid as much attention to school as her books, she'd be very successful'," laughs Holman.

She is used to forging her own path and taking risks. She went to Britain on her OE at 17, staying with British relatives in Essex. It was there she met her future husband Les, a former firefighter, after her cousin set them up on a blind date. She trained as a nurse, got married at 24, and lived in Britain for a decade.

She has worked in emergency rooms and cared for terminally ill patients.

As a result, she has no qualms about writing what some may consider escapist, lightweight fiction.

"Life is serious and funny," says Holman. "Even with dying, there are lighter moments and lots of black humour. I will always write happy endings. I write what I want to read, there is enough misery and facts when you turn on the news."

The secret to writing humour is in observation, says Holman. "People say and do things and they don't always realise they are funny. I listen. I think you find that most writers are observers. I'd rather sit on the sidelines and watch at a party."

There is a scene when city-slicker Tara notices the "country wave," when passing drivers raise a finger off the steering wheel in an understated hello. "I didn't know about that when I first moved here, that one finger thing," says Holman. "My husband did what Tara did in the book, which was wave back enthusiastically. You should have seen the driver's shocked face. That's how that bit got in the story."

Holman carries a notebook with her, and keeps a pad and pencil by her bed. "I can write in the dark lying down, without looking," she admits.

Now, Holman works as a Waikato area health nurse, travelling around to high schools in the district, dealing with a variety of health issues, including mental and sexual health.

It's perhaps no surprise that a safe sex messages comes through, even in the most hot-blooded romance scenes. Characters in the middle of a passionate embrace insist on using condoms and ask questions about sexual history. The X-rated content (breasts, nipples and penises make regular appearances in Divine and Bonkers) means she won't allow her two children to read her books. "Sex is part of life," says Holman. "Although some people have said to me the books are quite racy."

Both novels took about a year each to write, but Holman says more research went into Divine.

She consulted her local equine vet, Ian MacKay, about the effect of alcohol on a pony. With her character Tara picking up a part-time job as a telephone sex worker, Holman contacted the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective for expert advice. "They were wonderful," says Holman. "They sent an email to all their branches and put me in touch with Sue Watkins who taught me all the complexities of the telephone sex industry."

It's a case of truth being stranger than fiction. In the book, Tara receives a telephone sex training manual ("that's true, Sue told me about that") and has to deal with clients with amusing fetishes, such as feather obsessions or those who want to wear nappies and be bossed around ("it's pure gold").

The collective also put Holman in touch with transgender woman Hana Tatere. "I phoned her up and asked, `would you be willing to help me?' and she said, in this most beautiful golden voice, `whatever you want, honey'."

HOLMAN has advice for other would-be writers.

"Just do it. I'm the women in the supermarket picking peas out of the freezer, I'm the same as you. You just need self-belief. People often say to me they want to write, but don't have the time. I think, how bad do you want it?

"Don't listen to the numbers. When you find out how many manuscripts get accepted and published ... I have a friend who has had her novel sitting at home for nine years and still hasn't submitted it (over fear of getting rejected)."

She has another "six or seven" novels in her head or on the go, some half-finished. She always has a working title for them, and often begins with characters.

"It's like you get this skeleton of them, just an idea, and before you know it, they flesh out. Sometimes it can take a whole year."

She says writing a novel is like giving birth. "You are delighted with the baby, but you don't want to go back through the pregnancy again.

"The best thing (about writing) is talking to people reading it, and you are thinking `this is shite, utter shite'. Then you go somewhere and a couple of strangers say they read something and liked it."

Holman's favourite moment came from a book reading in Tokoroa. An elderly lady came up to her and said every Sunday she would ring her sister in New Plymouth and recommend books to each other. One Sunday she rang and said, `I've got the book for you,' and the other said, `I've got a book you absolutely have to read'. They were both talking about the same book - Bonkers.

Despite it reaching number four on the bestseller charts, Holman doesn't think her writing will make her rich. "In New Zealand, you can't survive on what you earn because of the size of our population. But I'll never stop writing. I have these people in my head that want to come to life on the page. If I was doing anything else, they'd give me medication."

Divine by Michelle Holman, $26.99 from HarperCollins Publishers, is available in bookstores now.

 

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