I’m, waiting to interview Lisa de Nikolits, author of Rotten Peaches. I’m unavoidably early
(I’m always early) and I’m annoyed the author isn’t here although she does have
twenty minutes grace. Oh look, there she is, she almost collided with a couple,
one of those awkward door-tangling episodes. Lisa looks perplexed as if Starbucks
is an alien world, confusing and inhospitable and she’s gazing around, peering nearsightedly
at her phone. I stand up, making lifeguard signalling motions and I finally catch
her eye. I have her books piled up on the table and she waves back at me,
smacking a hefty man on the shoulder. She apologizes and heads towards me,
threading dangerously through the tables and nearly knocks a venti something or
other into a teenager’s lap and the teenager scowls.
Lisa apologises for being late, I assure her she wasn’t, and
we chat about who’d like to eat and drink what and Lisa goes off to procure a venti
Pike for me and a pumpkin scone, and a grande non-fat, no-foam latte for
herself, with a Marshmallow Dream Bar on the side. I wanted to do the purchasing
but Lisa’s order was far too complicated and I let her do the honours. I watch
her. She’s shorter than I expected her to be and she looks older, tired. She’s
quite chatty to the barista and I tap my pen impatiently against my notepad.
When she returns, we get settled and I launch right into it.
What’s your worst nightmare?
The one where you are submerged under water and you can’t
breathe and you can’t make your way to the top. You can see the light shining
down through the water and it’s like you’re lying on your back on the bottom of
a murky pond, you’re Ophelia, sunken and there’s no escape.
I meant your worst nightmare in real life, the worst situation you have
been in or could imagine being in.
Real life is so boring! I far prefer to think in imaginative
terms.
Real life is boring? Isn’t that what inspires you?
No. My imaginary life inspires me. Reality is a killer. Hour
upon hour of mind-numbing tedium… that’s real life for you.
And yet you come across as someone endlessly fascinated by the people
and minutiae around you! I’ve read all your interviews.
I am fascinated by life, you’re right. But only as a base
ingredient for what my mind can do with the thing. In and of itself, what I observe
around me is merely a starting point.
And what is the catalyst for turning a dull base chemical, as it were,
into a magic potion for a story?
[Laughs] Honestly, I have no idea. I guess it comes to down
to having a good imagination, a touch of psychosis and an almost pathological
commitment to being a writer.
With the emphasis on psychosis, I’d like to discuss Rotten Peaches with particular attention to the two
secondary characters, the two love interests. JayRay, the conman, and Dirk, the
Afrikaner who wants the old South Africa back and who will do anything to try
to make that happen. How did you come up with them?
I always loved Frank Chambers, the conman love-interest in The Postman Always Rings Twice (James M.
Cain), and I wanted to write my own spin on that kind of guy. I had a lot of
fun with JayRay, he’s one of my favourite characters! He’s so sleazy and so gorgeous!
Dirk was inspired by an ex-boyfriend, an Afrikaans man with
strange moral boundaries that were dictated to him by his Church and People –
the Afrikaans morality. I wondered what happened to him in the new South Africa
and that became an interesting line to follow.
Both of those characters opened up fascinating plot lines
for me and writing the dialogue was a blast! As a writer, it’s the greatest
gift, when characters present themselves, fully formed, script in hand and a
bunch of warped ideas! It creates so much opportunity.
Rotten Peaches is primarily about love, lust, greed and
obsession. But there is racism too. Can you talk a bit about that?
I was born in the era of apartheid and I grew up in it.
Voting for Nelson Mandela was one of the most beautiful moments in my life. It
was a time of wonderful optimism and hope, it was truly amazing. I always
wanted to write about the apartheid experience, as a way to acknowledge the
terrible wrongs that existed when I grew up.
We had a housekeeper, although in those days we simply
called her the ‘maid’ even although she was a woman in her thirties with her
own children. I never even knew what her surname was. Betty. And I wanted to
apologise to Betty by writing about her. It doesn’t make things right, of
course it doesn’t, and Betty, my real Betty, will most probably never know
about the book, but sometimes you write about things that have worried you in
your life, things you can only put right in fiction.
You have described
your writing as Little House on The
Prairie meets Pulp Fiction. That’s
quite the combination, can you explain this?
[Laughs] Yes, well there is a farm scene in Rotten Peaches which starts off feeling
all peaceful and lovely and then it’s like Quentin Tarantino arrives and it
gets quite nasty! I like to take ordinary lives and ordinary people and then
use the worst ‘what if’ that I can imagine. But my ‘what if’ definitely has a
noir spin to it, noir with some humour.
Yes, let’s talk about your humour in writing. Is that an intentional
writing device to ease plot tension and bring depth the characters or why do
you use it?
I don’t use it, it uses me! I don’t have as much control
over my writing as I’d like – honestly, it pops out and I’m like a bystander,
mouth open, going okayyyyy…. But that’s what makes it hugely entertaining. I’m
not funny by nature, I hate watching comedy, it really stresses me out.
What kind of person doesn’t enjoy comedy? You have to explain more!
I just don’t! Half the time I just don’t get the joke! But
that said, I can watch Ace Ventura, Pet
Detective on repeat and I never stop laughing. Or Dumb and Dumber. Cracks me up! I don’t write that kind humour of
course, mine is more satirical, wry. I think I have a rather cynical view of
life and that comes out in humour. But it’s as if it was written by someone
else – like when I read JayRay’s comments, I wonder where they came from!
Do you have a writing routine?
I just do as much as I can in a day before I fall over. I
have a day job, I’m a graphic designer/magazine art director, although these
days magazines are as rare as hens’ teeth, so mainly I do graphic design. Which
is actually a lot easier than writing! Writing is a very tough gig! So I do as
much as I can at night and on the weekends. I have a running to-do list when it
comes to my writing and it’s very long! My motto is this: Do One Thing A Day For Your Writing and I stick to it. One sentence
or 10 000 words, it doesn’t matter, just do one thing.
Tell us about a few things on the to-do list.
I’m doing a lot of readings for Rotten Peaches which I always enjoy. Going to festivals, reading
from the book and being on panels is always such a treat after all the hard,
solitary slog of getting the book out there!
I’m also working on a short story, Hit Me With Your Pet Shark, for the anthology In The Key Of Thirteen, which will be published by The Mesdames of
Mayhem in 2019. I’m a member of the Mesdames, we’re a collective of
crime-loving ladies (and two gentlemen!) and it’s a great group of superbly
talented people.
The Occult Persuasion
and the Anarchist’s Solution will be coming out in 2019 and I need to do a
lot of self-editing on that! I am working on another noir novel, The Weegee Doll, and I have the fledging
idea for a time-travel crime novel called The
Rage Room, although I do seem a little stuck on that one which is
frustrating! There might be nothing there! I’m also looking forward to going to
Milan in April of next year to launch Una
furia dell’altro mondo (The Fury From
The Other World), the Italian publication of No Fury Like That. So there is lots to look forward to, lots to
keep me out of mischief! Although being mischievous is so much more fun than
not!
Anything you’d like to add, in closing?
Readers, keep reading and writers, keep writing! Books (and
fat-bottomed girls!) make the rockin’ world go round and let’s keep it that
wayFor more information, check out Innana Publications ('essential reading for feminists the world over').
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