The Grandiflora Tree, by Shonagh Koea

It is surprising how little information there is about Shonagh Koea on the internet. Apparently 'The Grandiflora Tree', her first novel, sold about 7000 copies, which is excellent for a New Zealand novel. (No chance of making a living out of it, I guess.)

Perhaps the reason for the lack of writing about her is that she wrote it well before people started writing book reviews on their blogs, but still, you would think she would have her own wikipedia entry. She doesn't. It is faintly possible that she deleted it herself.

After Husband read another of her novels, "Staying Home and Being Rotten", he said that he was quite surprised, because she was a New Zealand novelist, and he liked her. I felt the same. I don't go in for New Zealand literature in a big way. No, not even Katherine Mansfield, even though she is a relative.

So I had pretty high hopes for The Grandiflora Tree, but they weren't quite realised. It was kind of similar to "Staying Home and Being Rotten" but I liked the latter much more (as far as I can recall, 15 years later). I might read it again.

The first reason that The Grandiflora Tree annoyed me was that I felt like the author hadn't really experienced grief, and was making a very good guess at what grief feels like, but somehow getting it exactly wrong. So I googled her to find out whether my feeling was correct, and discovered, that in fact, Shonagh Koea did write this book after the death of her husband, so we have to accept that she knew all about grief. Not that I am equating the novelist with the narrator.

I guess we just have to come back to the platitude that "people grieve differently" - which is something that it is important to know - something that you often only learn the hard way, when your grief isn't how you thought it would be, thought it should be. So Koea's protagonist, Bernardette, wants to be left alone by well-meaning well-wishers who say the wrong thing. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted. I wanted people to ring me up and tell me that they didn't know what to say, but they felt like they needed to say something.

The problem is not so much that Bernardette grieved differently from me, or anyone else I know who has grieved, but that her grieving does not seem realistic. Of course, one should not assume that the novelist's aim was a realistic depiction of a grieving widow. The novel is quite stylised, and repetitive, almost chorus-like. The well-wishers pretty much all say the same (wrong) thing, which is, "you must be devastated". Or, "your life must suck". You can see why that would get annoying. There are one or two events in the novel in which the narrator is consoled by other people, but oddly, they are isolated events, which do not detract from the overall narrative flow, which is towards further despair and loneliness and hopelessness. For some reason Bernardette recognises that these few people have consoled her, and even thanks them, but she does not manage to make further contact with these people.

Instead, as the novel progresses, she delves back in time and remembers more of her relationship with the dead husband. It becomes obvious early on that he was a complete see-you-next-Tuesday, but worse and worse behaviour is revealed as the chapters go by. And one cannot help but wonder what exactly Bernardette is grieving for. The blurb actually describes this book as a love story, which is bizarre. The only explanation I can think of is that love stories might sell more copies. I guess you don't write "repetitive dirge" on the back of a paperback.

So yes, in sum, the book is about a woman who grieves in isolation and bitterness for a husband who was a heartless bore and whom she hated. And the husband is so boring that it is a pity so much of his diary is included in the novel, because unfortunately, we get to find out how boring he is for ourselves.

But there is more to it than that of course. I sound like I am describing a book that I really didn't like, but it is strangely readable all the same. Strangely it draws you back in. And there is almost an air of triumph about Bernardette's mad determination to turn away all well-wishers and be alone. I think it might be the triumph of being cleverer than the husband and the well-wishers. Of being somehow saner. Of seeing through the lies and the nonsense that we wrap death up in. So yeah, I kind of liked it.

At the same time, you almost have to be Russian to write a book this desolate. If you are going to go mad mourning the man who treated you like shit your whole life, best to be stuck in a shack in Siberia starving and freezing to death as well. References to being low on firewood don't have the same resonance in New Plymouth.

What is Shonagh Koea really like? Bullshit-free, we know that much. Perhaps that is why she is the only kiwi novelist for grown ups whom I like.