A surprising glimmer of hope

Mother's Day (Penguin $28) by Laurence Fearnley. Photo / Supplied

It was rubbish day when novelist Laurence Fearnley visited Invercargill, and the wind had knocked the bins and their contents into the road. That's when Maggie the caregiver appeared in her head. It might seem an unflattering way for a character to emerge but for the protagonist in Fearnley's new novel, Mother's Day, the mess summed up the life of someone forever cleaning up after others. Then there was the day Fearnley went to a cafe in the Catlins.

"It was Mother's Day and I remember seeing these very awkward, formal families sitting around," says Fearnley, on the phone from her home in Dunedin. "It was a very moving experience. They were really making an effort."

And so began the third novel in her New Zealand southern trilogy, following Butler's Ringlet and Edwin & Matilda: An Unlikely Love Story, a runner-up for the fiction award at last year's New Zealand Montana Book Awards. Fans of her previous works would do well to prepare themselves emotionally.

There is little satisfaction that comes with Maggie's job as she looks after her clients, who sap the energy and compassion she tries her best to bestow on her family. Not that she finds much solace at home either, raising mopey Bevan, who has befriended a delinquent, Lisa, resigned to the fact her mother can't afford to send her to medical school; Auckland-based teen mother Justine, hanging out for a useless boyfriend; and Justine's 5-year-old son, Storm.

Maggie herself is resigned to the tedious routine of her existence. But then she meets a disabled musician and rediscovers a surprising glimmer of hope in her life - she can sing. Just don't hold out for a fairytale ending. "I wanted to write something gritty," says Fearnley. "At one point I thought it could be like one of those romantic films where they go to the Golden Guitars, come second and have this magical relationship. But it just didn't seem realistic."

Fearnley doesn't shy away from the reality of Maggie's job either, right down to what she sees in the toilet bowl. The character's endurance is illustrated literally - Maggie goes to the supermarket, does the laundry, worries about everything. Fearnley hoped to project a sense of frustration many mothers feel when they're simply trying to get out of the door in the morning. Her own family is not the inspiration for her characters, she says, although her 7-year-old son helped to inform Storm's likes and dislikes, his fondness for light-sabres and tuataras.

Mother's Day is heavy stuff and at times it's hard not to reach into the pages and shake Maggie, show her there are positives if she just looked hard enough. Even the author felt that way. "I always wanted something good to happen to her but when it did, she couldn't recognise it, it didn't enter her head. I wish she'd see but she's so focused on making sure that the chores are done, the kids are okay. That's why the music is so important."

Fearnley had wanted to write a story that was darker than the unlikely romance between 62-year-old Edwin and jilted 22-year-old bride Matilda. She set the story in Invercargill, and made several trips there and to nearby Riverton and Winton to get the details right. "I like the sense of isolation - you're at the bottom of the country, facing south, facing the sea, you can't go any further south. I like the people who live there - the fishermen from Bluff, the industrial types, the students - and it's close to lots of nice places I enjoy visiting."

Making Maggie a care-giver allowed Fearnley access to other characters and their homes, so we meet Tim, the tattooed, wheelchair-bound guitarist whose ramshackle house gives Maggie comfort. Her job also reiterates the thanklessness of motherhood. "Caregivers are at the bottom end of the way we value people," says Fearnley. "Obviously some are brilliant, others are on ACC and sickness benefits, a few are troubled people. Maybe they take on these jobs because it allows them to work hours that are convenient to them."

The book took Fearnley 16 months to write and proved to be her hardest working stint yet, composed while she was a Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago. She has always been a prolific and disciplined writer, at her keyboard five days a week.

After studying for a Masters in Creative Writing under the tutelage of Bill Manhire, Fearnley went on to write several novels. Her second, Room, was shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2001. She was also awarded the 2004 Artists to Antarctica fellowship and the 2006 Island of Residencies fellowship in Tasmania. Mother's Day took so much out of her it has, oddly enough, inspired her to go back to writing school.

Aside from the "happy novel" she is writing about a group of mountaineers building a hut at Mt Cook in the 1950s, she has just enrolled in Manhire's PhD in Creative Writing, a three-year programme during which she will complete a novel and a 50,000-word research project.

As a successful, published author, what's in it for her? "I like the sense of community it offers. I like being by myself and the solitude of writing but it's really nice to get back into the world. I've never belonged to a writing group and it's 10 years since my masters. I felt very flat after writing Maggie, worn out, tired, I didn't feel like writing another book. So this is a nice way to get motivated again." Studying had also helped her appreciate the many ways writers approach their craft.

Fearnley says she never plans or plots, preferring to let her characters guide the story. "I find once I know I get bored. You have so many choices and possibilities as an author." But one thing usually remains the same during the genesis of her novels. It all starts with an image. Like the rubbish bins strewn in the road.

* Mother's Day (Penguin $28).