New Zealander Charity Norman, author of Home Truths (Allen & Unwin, 2024) spoke to Sisters in Crime’s Robyn Walton about her latest novel, Home Truths. In 2023, her book, Remember Me, was awarded the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel.
Hi Charity. I really enjoyed reading this novel, your eighth. If asked to summarise how I felt about Home Truths, I’d borrow the words reviewer Liz Robinson wrote about your last book, Remember Me: “With an all-consuming plot and characters that feel vibrantly real, this is an engaging and eloquent novel”. How are you feeling about your writing?
Thank you for those cheering words. They’re doubly welcome at the moment, because I’m just gearing up to tackle my next, and – as always – jittering between raring-to-go excitement and paralysing anxiety. What if it’s utter bilge? What if I get it catastrophically wrong this time?
Your dialogue is lively. Here’s a sample: “Upset! No shit, Sherlock. What the hell did you expect?” Any hints for writing dialogue?
Listen, listen, listen! I spent long childhood journeys to school – I travelled on the public bus – eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers in the seats behind me. The content was generally mundane, but I got an ear for the rhythms and bounce of dialogue.
Your setting for Home Truths is small-town Yorkshire in the months from late summer 2019 to spring 2020 (with a final section in February 2022). Why there and then?
North Yorkshire because I know and love the place, with its power and presence; the years 2019–2020 because the Covid pandemic triggered a perfect storm of isolation, anxiety, and the explosion of online disinformation. There were many Scott Denbys in those years.
You introduce us to the four members of the Denby family, all likeable, relatable people. When things go wrong for them, could we consider their situation a microcosm of society’s problems, or is the drama more about their individual family?
It can be read as a drama, a thriller. But you’re right, I also intended the Denby family as a microcosm, facing this monumental challenge of living in a post-truth era. In a way, I feel we are all the Denbys.
You live in New Zealand and a character mentions the Christchurch massacre of 2019. Any thoughts on how NZ is recovering from that atrocity?
That’s a very big question. The nation was shaken to its core by the sheer hatred and evil of that attack. Ardern’s leadership brought millions together to express unity and compassion in a way I have never experienced before, in any country. But I think perhaps we will never be quite the same again – and neither should we be.
More info here.