Pacific creations

Jenny Pattrick achieved a small triumph weaving together her latest story, Inheritance, at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France. Photo / Supplied

To go all the way to France to write a novel set in Samoa seems illogical. But for Jenny Pattrick, a small, bare room beneath the villa where Katherine Mansfield once lived proved to be the perfect place to conjure up images of Apia in the 1960s.

"I loved writing there," says Pattrick, who normally works at home in Wellington. "When I first walked in I thought it might be a little impersonal, but I discovered I could fill it with the people I was writing about. It amazed me, I'd walk in and was immediately in Samoa."

Pattrick spent nine months last year writing in Menton on the French Riviera as the recipient of the 2009 NZ Post Katherine Mansfield Prize. In the 40 years since the fellowship has been established, many of New Zealand's literary greats have worked in that same little room beneath the Villa Isola Bella, including Janet Frame, Michael King, CK Stead, Maurice Gee and Lloyd Jones.

"That was a terrific feeling, both intimidating and inspiring," says Pattrick, who probably counts as the only writer of popular fiction to have made it on to that long list of literary heavyweights. More than 100,000 copies of her Denniston Rose trilogy have been sold so far - a huge figure for New Zealand.

"It felt like a small triumph to be there," admits the author, who struggled at first with the idea she was a popular fiction writer rather than literary. "It really shocked me that they were putting me in this box.

"I read widely and it never occurred to me to think, 'this is a literary book or this is a popular one'.

"But I'm quite happy with it now. I love that lots of people read my books. It's a good feeling."

Her latest novel Inheritance (Random House, $29.99) is the sumptuous, often dark tale that Pattrick conjured up while she was in Menton.

It's a dramatic story about family secrets that opens in Invercargill with Jeanie Roper fleeing from her old friend Elena Levemanaia after spotting her in an art gallery. Pattrick then takes us back to Samoa in the 1960s as Jeanie, with her part-Chinese father and her bullying husband, arrive to take over the family cocoa plantation.

There they encounter great lushness, beauty and friendship, but also racism and extreme brutality.

This fictional story is threaded through with real events that are based partly on Pattrick's experiences of 1960s Samoa when she was a young mother living and working there.

"During that time I wrote a fortnightly newsletter for Radio New Zealand and I've still got the carbon copies," she explains.

"To re-read them reminds me of all the details and I've always wanted to use the material in a story."

In Inheritance Pattrick writes of the hurricane she experienced, of bandaging the limbs of filariasis sufferers and of the concert she helped to stage to raise funds for the Women's Committee Headquarters.

"With my historical novels I like to put my fictional characters into real places and events," she explains.

This is 73-year-old Pattrick's sixth novel. She came to creating fiction relatively late but the former teacher and jeweller has no regrets.

"I loved my jewellery career so I'm not sorry about that," she says. "And I'm a person who likes change. My mother was the same.

"She became an artist in her 50s, took it seriously and was quite a good painter. We live so long now we've got time for two careers."

For many years, however, Pattrick doubted her new career was going to take off. She had written and rewritten The Denniston Rose endlessly, been rejected by most local publishers and was on the point of giving up when Random House agreed to take it.

"At the time I was advised that they didn't do historical fiction but they were starting to widen their base and thought they might give it a try. I hadn't thought of Denniston Rose as historical. I just thought of it as a New Zealand story."

Although some of her best-selling books have been published in Australia, major international success continues to elude Pattrick most likely because she does write such deeply Pacific stories.

"I used to think I should get an agent and get out there," she says. "But I really like writing New Zealand stories so I think I'll just stick at that."

With her husband Laughton, she also works on children's songs and shows and, while in Menton, the couple completed 17 songs that are to be released with a children's storybook.

"We had a productive time there," she says. "But we also did a lot of travelling. I think that's an important part of the fellowship. You're going there not only to write, but to gather material for future writing."

Pattrick certainly has no plans to retire. There are ideas for two more novels, maybe more. She is also hoping to return to the setting of Inheritance.

"I've never been back to Samoa," she says. "I wanted to keep my 1960s eyes while I was writing this book. But I think I'll go now."