I finished recording the audiobook of Money in the Morgue at about 3pm this afternoon. As I read the last paragraph, after almost three full days of very intensely concentrated recording, interspersed with very busy Fun Palaces office days, I was almost crying. I walked to the station, got two tubes home, picked up a bit of shopping, walked down our road, got in the front door and burst into tears
I’ve never done an audiobook before (although, gratifyingly, many readers have said they’d like me to) and I think there was something about reading aloud a piece of work that has taken a good chunk of the past two years to create, something that touches the place in me that loved being read to as a child. I had the great good fortune of being the youngest of seven kids, which meant there were many people to read to me, including – once we were in NZ – librarians reading Saturday morning stories at Tokoroa library, that was such a gift, thank you libraries people. Reading was a big deal in our house. My parents both had to leave school at 14, reading was everything.
My mum’s been dead for 15 years. My dad’s been dead for 30 years this October. They’ve been gone such a long time, my father now dead five years longer than he was in my life (I was 25 when he died), and yet I’d love them to know about this book. The NZ WW2 soldier characters in Money in the Morgue have a touch of my father, of my uncles. My joy in reading aloud and sharing stories is of my mother. They don’t know about the book, can’t ever know, they are gone, I know that. And my adult understanding of an often difficult childhood means I look back at those days with very little rose tinting. Regardless, I think they would have been proud. And I’d have loved them to know I did the work.
I’m nearly 55 and today I missed my mum and dad.
It’s a moving blog. I got to hear you read To Brixton Beach at Word Factory. I’m very glad and grateful I’ll get you to hear read a WHOLE novel. I very much look forward to it.
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thank you Carine, I was thinking of you and of other people who said they enjoy my reading as I did it – made me feel braver about it!
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That’s lovely to hear, thank you.
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When I was about to leave home for the first time a much older friend of mine said to me, “No matter how old you get, you never stop missing home.” I only understood about 10% of what she meant at the time, I’m probably at 70% and climbing now. Got a whole lot of learning and losing to do before I’m at 100.
Thank you for posting this. x
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yes, and we can never go home either – because, as Dorothy says, there’s no place like home. Literally, it changes as we do. We cant go back.
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Lost my mother 50 years ago & father about 20 years ago (funny I never recall his date exactly). So many things they never knew; the books I wrote, the degree I got, that I can drive…. We never stop wishing we could let them know the successes, and I suspect even at the age of 71, I still do things to please my mother— but also was freed to do much they wouldn’t have liked too!
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yes, there is a freedom too – I think the missing and the freedom can co-exist. how brilliant too, for your mother to still matter, 50 years later.
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It is comforting to realise that as long as we talk or think about our parents who are no longer here, they continue to remain. There is a wonderful piece of work by Robert Montgomery http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/9142/1/robert-montgomery-ghost-in-the-machine
which sums this up perfectly.
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thank you. it’s a very lovely piece.
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It really would have been a book your mum would have especially loved Stella – and all the London stories you’ve written – so much of the sense of your family is in what you write, perform etc – Did you mum see your play Breastrokes? Your references to her and Tom .. cracking – What I do remember is what she said about your first book and that she was soooo into what you did. XXX
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really poignant and I so know they’d have loved what you’re doing XXXX
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No, she didn’t see Breaststrokes. I wanted her to see the finished thing, so she didn’t see the work-in-progress version, and then she died before I did the final version. and yes, she was very supportive about the writing, all along. xx
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What a lovely blog Stella xx
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thank you xx
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