Marriner returns

Rotorua author Craig Marriner created waves with his gritty, award-winning first novel Stonedogs. Now he's back with a second book, Southern Style, about a group of Kiwis, Aussies and South Africans living it up in London. MIKE MATHER caught up with him to talk about writing, US imperialism and surviving the big OE.
Ow about a nice cuppa then, guv'nor?

Tea might not be the usual beverage of choice for Craig Marriner, but for now he is firmly off duty from the hard-living image that has crept up around him, thanks largely to the uncompromising content of his debut novel Stonedogs, released in 2001.

Now Marriner has a second book - Southern Style - and this week finds him relaxing in his old home town Rotorua, spending time with his family and recovering from the whirlwind of interviews and appearances that coincided with the book's recent release.

Battling a bad case of hayfever, the first cuppa of the day is proving a tonic.

Also refreshing is the reception his second novel has had from the local media.

"The reviews have been largely pretty good. It's looking pretty promising."

But few new novels have had to contend with the weight of expectation that has burdened Southern Style.

After a fairly low-key release, Stonedogs won the Deutz Medal for best fiction book at the 2002 Montana Book Awards - an accolade which raised eyebrows among the snobbier echelons of the local artistic community and thrust Marriner into the unexpected position of the enfant terrible of New Zealand literature.

"[Writing Southern Style] was a lot harder than the first time around," he said. "A lot of it I put on myself, knowing that since Stonedogs won the award, I would have a much wider audience for my second book."

Southern Style is best described as a portrait of London through colonial eyes.

According to the publicity material, it lifts the proverbial lid on the Big OE - but is it the lid of a treasure trove of fun, or a festering toilet?

Both descriptions are apt. Set within the young Kiwi, Aussie and South African communities living in the great metropolis, Southern Style depicts London as both wonderful and worrying - for the main characters it is an endless series of hedonistic parties, copious drugs and staunch camaraderie.

But below the surface, or around every back alley, danger lurks in the form of London's lowlife community. Alleys where taking a leak can be construed as taking the piss by any of the resident hyper-agro youths, resulting in a swift broken bottle to the jugular.

The London of Southern Style has a lot to give, but it can certainly demand a high price in return.

Think one part Bruce Robinson's Withnail & I, one part Nic Roeg's Performance and one part the lyrics of The Clash's London Calling.

Anyone who has read Stonedogs will be well aware of Marriner's fascination for scenes of ultra-violence and dysfunctionality.

Partially set in a thinly-disguised "Rotovegas," Stonedogs was the tale of a quartet of wild, reckless and profoundly anti-establishment youths who get mixed up in a series of savage and sinister events far from their control.

With its raw and scathing prose and its frank depiction of the casual brutality the street kids, gang members and other inhabitants of Rotovegas inflict on each other, Stonedogs showed a side of the city not exactly represented by the plethora of postcards and mass-produced souvenirs cluttering many of its shops.

The main characters of Southern Style are a world away, both figuratively and literally, from the Stonedogs lads. More upwardly mobile and much less "fringe" - which isn't to say that they are not dysfunctional in other ways.

There's Lisa from Cape Town, class warrior and part-time drug dealer; Ryan the Aussie, with little to show for two years of overstaying but hangovers and hangups; and Alex from Auckland, fresh off the plane, a management graduate with the world at his feet.

As well as the expectation, writing Southern Style was a tentative process for Marriner because the narrative switches between third and first person and a variety of characters.

But which character does he identify with most?

"Probably the girl [Lisa]. Particularly her outspoken statements and opinions. She is a lot like the way I was about seven or so years ago.

"The Stonedogs lads were all based on real guys who I knew, but these guys I had to come up with from scratch."

His undeniable gift for adopting personae extends to the Poms, including East End gangster types like Melvyn (possibly inspired by The Long Good Friday's Harold Shand) and his merciless henchman Vernon (of which Sexy Beast's Don Logan was likely a role model).

These characters are more well-rounded than the cardboard cut-out denizens of your average Guy Ritchie movie though.

Marriner said his main aim while writing Southern Style was to create "a long-overdue anthem for the young people who have left or who are thinking of leaving the former colonies and returning to the motherland in search of something."

He says it will also appeal to those who hankered to do this but never made it, and for those who have loved ones who set out on the OE.

"There's probably something in there for parents whose kids are over there right now and want to know what they are up to - although they might wish they hadn't of once they had read it."

Marriner has spent much of his adult life wandering the globe.

He is currently London-based, living the expat life himself.

Being largely set within London's young Kiwi, Aussie and South African communities allowed Marriner to juxtapose and compare the three cultures - most poignantly in a pub during a Super 12 semifinal between New Zealand and South African teams - and also, of course, draw comparisons with British culture itself.

"One of the most endearing characteristics of London is its wide ethnic mix - and the way folk of so many different nationalities and races can come to play a part in one's life, which is often a big departure to what we Southerners have grown up with.

"This racial spread is a deeply ingrained feature of the city, and can teach the OEers an awful lot about the world beyond their shores, something which grows more and more relevant as our own immigration process, issues, attitudes evolve down here."

The Middle Eastern element has a particular current relevance in these times of Bush and Blair's war against terror, Marriner said.

"Its a terrific canvas for throwing people together from different religious, cultural, and ideological backgrounds.

"These differences should always take a back seat to judging people upon their personal merits. This is another key theme of the book."

In terms of subversiveness, when Marriner set out to write Southern Style he initially intended to steer away from such themes as an artistic challenge, but as time went on the excesses of "Team Bush and the Madcowboys, and the vastly more subtle Blair" became impossible to ignore.

"The post 9/11 political climate to me has made the world an even more dire place than it was before a place of pre-emptive invasion, catastrophic terrorist assault, detention without due process, of low-yield nuclear weapons, and so on and so forth - and for this reason I think a lot more people are concerning themselves."

Marriner was in London through the build-up to the Iraq war and took part in many of the demonstrations.

Even though the masses failed to reign in the politicians and their invasion plans ("It's pretty hard to see if a difference is being made ... Everyone knows what a f***-up Bush is, yet he still managed to get re-elected!") Marriner found the experience of taking an active protest role "very uplifting and promising in the way that it united so many colours, ages and classes peacefully against what was seen as a common threat to common decency."

The war is also a major theme of his third, already half-written novel about a group of backpackers trekking through Europe during the 2003 US-led invasion.

"It's based a lot on my own experiences, because that is pretty much what I was doing at that time.

"It deals with a group of disaffected Westerners and how they get propelled towards this pro-peace underground movement."

There is also the potential pitfall in that taking such a vocal pro-peace stance Marriner could find his writings being labelled "old hat."

He counts among his role models George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S Thompson, "may he rest in peace".

"I'm reading very very widely these days. I really can't cite anyone in particular as being more of an influence than anyone else. Most of the time my inspiration comes from whatever is happening around me."

The writings of Robert Fisk and Marxist theorist Robert Trotsky are also fuel to his fire.

"Pretty much of what I write in that respect is preaching to the converted ... and yeah, there is almost a danger of being called completely unoriginal."

He is also helping work on the process of adapting Stonedogs for the screen.

Mushroom Pictures has an optioning deal on making the movie and Scarfies writer Duncan Sarkies and former Shortland Street actor Rene Naufahu have taken turns at writing draft screenplays for the story, partially set in Rotorua.

"It would be great if they filmed it here. It would be a damn shame if they didn't," Marriner enthuses.

"If you were to film it true to the book it would almost be a period piece.

"It is set in the early 90s and if you were to bring it up to date, then you would have to bring all the music and other references up to date as well."