The historian with the wineglass in the Devonport Library - Steve Braunias vs Rory Sweetman’s 20-year grudge

The scene of the stoush - Devonport Library, where 150 people had gathered to launch new books by two literary greats. Photo / Supplied

Dr Rory Sweetman had been nursing the glass of pinot gris for two hours - but he’d been stewing over the literary score he was about to settle for a full two decades.

The pinot gris was lukewarm. But when it hit Steve Braunias in the face, in a packed suburban library, it stung.

Last Tuesday, in Devonport, Auckland, around 150 people gathered to celebrate a new book by CK Stead and the life and last work of Kevin Ireland, the writer who had died 11 days earlier.

Standing room only for these men whose histories go back to Frank Sargeson, Janet Frame and what has been described as the birth of “a truly New Zealand literature”. Entry by koha. Egg sandwiches and excellent cheese straws. And then, after the speeches and the readings, one man threw a glass of wine in the face of another.

Authors Kevin Ireland (left) and CK Stead, photographed in 2019 at Frank Sargeson House, in Takapuna, Auckland. Photo / Peter Meecham

“It was the first opportunity I’d had,” Sweetman told the Weekend Herald. “And I’d been waiting for quite some time.”

“At first I thought ‘some nutter has thrown wine at me’,” Braunias told the Weekend Herald. “But when I was told by someone what it was about, I thought: Some nutter who wrote a book no one wanted threw wine at me.”

Sweetman is a professional historian and author. Braunias is a journalist and author. Twenty years ago, the latter was also the New Zealand Listener’s books and arts editor.

Historians have long memories. Sweetman, for example, remembers only 750 copies of A Fair and Just Solution? A history of the integration of private schools in New Zealand were printed, and he had to do his own promotion and publicity. He contacted the Listener and was invited to send a review copy. No response. Sweetman followed up with an email explaining the significance of his book and a personal note to Braunias: “People have told me you are unlikely to review this book”.

Sweetman, this week: “This, I am guessing, triggered a paranoia that his enemies were talking about him.”

Eventually, Sweetman’s book did appear in the Listener - in a column about the worst books of the year.

Braunias began the column with a direct quote from Sweetman’s acknowledgement section (“those who follow too closely on the heels of history risk having their teeth kicked in” etcetera).

Historian Rory Sweetman. Photo / Supplied

Then, says Sweetman, “He stated ‘I didn’t read anymore’ ... he effectively guyed my work by association with the other dire productions he then went on to dissect.”

Sweetman’s furious letter to the Listener was never published. And so, says the now 68-year-old, he waited.

“My books are my children. I don’t mind a critical review, but that was a sneering, personal assault. It was minor, but obviously not minor enough in my mind to forget it.

“It’s like dueling. I wanted honour satisfied ... one cheap shot balanced out by another.”

Sweetman (born in Ireland and currently working on a history of the Protestant-founded Orange Order) has sent the Weekend Herald a copy of the explanation - and apology - he this week sent to Kevin Ireland’s wife, Janet Wilson.

He writes: “Neither Kevin nor CK Stead would stand by and see their writing mocked and derided without some form of retaliation. I waited until the event was well over and did the least violent act possible. Hitting him hard on the nose would have been an admittedly cheap shot, but it would have adequately answered the one he gave me.

“Was it an appropriate response to his offence? How else to penetrate that smugly superior exterior? If he makes a habit of using his privileged position to demean and belittle the writing of others, he has to expect some form of response. The Listener did not accommodate one, so I took the only other way open. The look on his face was sufficient recompense.”

The wine got Braunias in the eyes.

“It really stung like hell,” he says. “He told me his name - which didn’t mean anything to me - and then threw a glass of wine in my face.”

Braunias had just finished chairing the event when the incident happened. He says Sweetman was escorted out of the library shouting “he knows why” but, “I didn’t know why”.

Journalist, columnist and author Steve Braunias chaired the event where the wine was thrown. Photo / Dean Purcell

Twenty years ago, books that didn’t make it to the Listener’s review pages went into a draw. Braunias says staff were invited to write their names on slips of paper and place them inside the books they wanted. There were always six or seven, he says, that nobody claimed.

“I’ve had some bad reviews. You just take it on the chin and you just keep writing ... I mean, it wasn’t a review. The book was not credible enough to be reviewed. It was a book that absolutely no one wanted.”

History may have produced some spectacular literary stoushes but this, says Braunias, is outside the normal terms of reference.

“It just doesn’t have that literary element.”

Greg Hall is a spokesperson for the Devonport Library Associates, the group that hosted Tuesday’s event. He is also the man who removed Sweetman from the premises. He describes the incident as a “desecration of a sacred space” and an act of “gross disrespect” to guests and participants. The Associates, a not-for-profit group that buys books by local authors for its library and regularly organises literary events, is considering what further, formal action it may take.

“We are very, very angry about this, because of the gravitas of the event ... it meant a huge amount to us, it was quite an emotional evening ... Karl is in his 91st year, Kevin was in his 90th year ... they’re a link right back to all these wonderful people who are now part of our literary folklore.

“No one expected it. There was only one person who expected that to happen and that’s someone who used this event to carry out this little stupid little act of retaliation.”

Author CK Stead (whose book Say I Do This was being launched alongside Ireland’s third memoir A Month at the Back of My Brain) says he didn’t witness the wine throwing (“I was signing books”) but says the evening as an “excellent occasion which went off tremendously well - it was a bit sad there had to be that dark episode right at the end”.

And, on the subject of literary criticism: “People get annoyed with one another and sometimes indignant. Sometimes reviews are unfair, but really, you have to grow up and accept that not everybody’s going to like your book. If that was the reason for the wine throwing - whatever the reason it was a bad thing to do - but if that was the reason, then that guy needs to grow up.”