Jo Nesbo at Writers and Readers Week

Sneaking in to Jo Nesbo - Maggie Rainey-Smith reports

Well, we didn’t actually sneak, but we got there by the skin of our teeth in almost the very back row of the very full Embassy Theatre.  I hadn‘t planned to be there.  I was in fact, going to the party by VUP for the launch of Harry Rickett’s lovely new collection at the Atrium and by some lucky chance, two of us, myself and Susan Pearce, had the time wrong.   An hour and a half to fill in.   What to do?     We saw the crowds gathering outside the Embassy and realised, there was a very fine way to fill in the time.

               And isn’t that just exactly how Writers and Readers week should work?  You turn up to a session with no expectations and find yourself intrigued and engaged.   I lived in Norway for one summer and three winters in the early 70’s and so I found much of what Jo spoke about, deeply interesting.  But to begin with, the session was chaired by Craig Sisterson, who I think forgot to introduce himself, but I recognised him from his blog photograph.   He was a very good Chair.  He was unobtrusive and conversational and allowed the free-flow of thoughts and ideas from the writer, which is always a bonus for the audience.   To be fair, Jo (call me Yo, or indeed, Craig called him both Jo and Yo) was generous and talkative and delightfully discursive.   This can be difficult for a Chair, but I felt Craig Sisterson handled this aspect really well, and when it was time to then ask a question, it didn’t sound as if he’d been dying to pounce or pull the writer back into line – the conversation seemed entirely natural and he as chair, gently affirming.

               Jo Nesbo spoke of his writing as entertainment, and he himself was thoroughly entertaining; nicely self-deprecating at the start too.  He pointed out how his ‘past’ before he became a famous writer has now become much bigger than it really was – an example being his football career at premier league in a small town (Sisterson said he’d been a professional footballer) – he laughed and said that the small town he came from were now almost claiming he was their lost Maradona.   He made light of his success as a musician, although it seems his band and he did have a few real hit records.   And too, along with all of this, he had worked as a stockbroker during the week (band gigs on the weekends).  Already, pretty impressive.

               The most interesting moment for me was when he revealed the motivation for writing his first novel.   At first he told us that he just needed some ‘time out’ and that he had taken off to Australia and more specifically, a room in Kings Cross, Sydney, where he wrote his first novel.   But later, as the conversation progressed, it seemed that this may have coincided (although he didn’t actually come out say this), with the death of his father.   His father had moved from New York to Norway I think in the early 1940’s and during the Second World War, had chosen to fight with the Germans on the Eastern front against Russia, whereas his mother had been part of the renowned Norwegian resistance.  

               Jo Nesbo told the audience, his father had told him the truth about his involvement with the Germans when Jo was still a young boy and also that his father had spent three years in jail after the war because of it.   And that his father had felt this to be fair.    He told Jo that at the time of the war, having arrived from the United States, he viewed Europe and thought Stalin the bigger threat than Hitler.   But, he knew he had been wrong.   Jo felt that his father had always wanted to write a book about his experiences, and so it seemed when his father died, that he needed to do this.

               I found these revelations riveting.  Having lived in Norway in the Telemark region for three winters and one summer in the early 70’s, all I had ever heard about was the Norwegian resistance and indeed in the small village that I lived in the Haukeli Mountains there was still a deep resentment from the older generation relating to the German occupation.   And of course, I knew about the legendary Telemark heavy waters sabotage.  I hadn’t known that many Norwegian’s had fought for the Germans against Stalin.

               Ha, isn’t this what makes Writers and Readers week so very special?   And of course, now I am going to read Jo Nesbo - as yes, confession, I haven’t read any of his books... yet.

               There were two lovely Kiwi moments.   Craig Sisterson in his lovely unobtrusive way was reacting to the fact that Jo’s children’s book about ‘Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder’ has been turned into a highly successful movie and he said ‘I bet you are stoked’... and then quickly, looked at the audience and back at Jo, and modified this and said ‘I bet you’re really happy (or something like that to decode stoked).    Then at question time a woman wanted to know how Jo came up with a particular scenario in one of his novels relating to a ‘long drop’ and that she in her working life was closely associated on a regular basis with the ‘long drop’.  Jo was very quiet, as if challenged to answer this and then the penny dropped – he had no idea what a long drop was, but when he realised, he was so delighted at the fabulous appropriacy of the word.

               And then, I left Jo Nesbo to attend the very posh book launch of Harry Rickett’s new poetry collection published by VUP.    When I saw posh, I mean it – it was in the Atrium (next to Monsoon Poon) and there were flash wines and fancy food (delicious food) and a really warm and buzzy atmosphere.   VUP was really celebrating.   Harry was his usual, entirely modest self and read only three poems, all delightful and one about Arty Bees (a Wellington second-book shop and institution) that brought much laughter to the room, as Harry’s poems often do.  I haven’t had time to read the book so I can’t review, but I always enjoy the skew Harry takes on life, academia and poetry itself.