Wood Green

Novels and films that explore the relationship between a young, would-be writer, and a more experienced writer-mentor are not necessarily new but Sean Rabin’s Wood Green has done something a little different with this ‘genre’. The idea seems to appeal: think of the success of Joël Dicker’s The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair – a murder mystery of sorts, with a younger writer living with and assisting his mentor. Then there is the very engaging thriller – John Colapinto’s About the Author, which is not so much about the mentor but the idea of literary theft as a shortcut to success. Sean Rabin plays around with some of these ideas, as young Michael arrives in Hobart to assist Lucian Clarke put together his papers (for posterity, or for some biographical project, yet to be determined). At several points, Michael, who has completed a PhD on Clarke, considers how he might either make use of Lucian’s papers for his own purposes, or else appropriate Lucian’s incomplete manuscript as he, too, begins a work of fiction.

Set against this ‘crime’ aspect (as seen in Dicker and Colapinto), Rabin paints a more comic picture of his young writer and the aging, reclusive author. Not being that an young author himself (Rabin is a more experienced man of the world), Rabin’s portrait of the artist(s) is a less ‘Hollywood’ version of authorial success. There are no fast cars or lavish parties for this fellow: Michael might envy Lucian’s CD and book collection, but that would be about all. There is a bachelor pad of sorts – if you consider an isolated old house with a glorious view of Mount Wellington a ‘pad’. There are pictures in Lucian’s bedroom and details in his papers to show he has lived an adventurous life, though it doesn’t appear to have been a happy one – more of a set of experiences that have enabled him to write ‘real’ literature. Michael, too, is a rather dishevelled, dissatisfied soul – coming to Hobart, it seems, to escape an overly fussy girlfriend and … Well, not much else. He is what many young men are: a half-finished project; perhaps working with Lucian will finish him off? (That’s not bad, actually, if you have read the book).

I did wonder, at times, about the point of some of the minor characters. Some are comic, like the egotistical B&B owner, Andrew, fussing over his guests and offended when they don’t consider him lifelong friend material. Paul, Penny and the nastier Carl are various examples of single men and women who perhaps compare to Michael and Lucian in dealing with life’s ups and downs on their own. There are no happy couples at all in the novel at all – the other ‘minors’ are Tim and Maureen, in the process of splitting up, just as soon as they can sell their corner-store business. Yet each of these characters allows Rabin to expand indirectly on key themes. For example, here’s Maureen thinking about the meaning of objects and memory (a key idea for Lucian in the latter half of the book):

‘As she passed through the house noting how small it looked without any furniture, Maureen lamented the way every detail would eventually fade from her memory, just like all the other houses she had lived in. The thought perturbed her, and she looked about the shop – the only room left undisturbed – to try to memorise its features’ (p.284).

The notion of biography, or autobiography, or gathering one’s papers (or employing someone to do so) is very much a literary expansion of this commonplace feeling of the abandonment of places and the feeling of emptiness it brings. Writers and artists, Rabin seems to suggest, are in a race against time to capture or recapture experiences and places before they fade away. A lot of pot is smoked in this book, and that can’t help – though there is also the ‘mindfulness’ it brings of listening to music in the present moment, intense and bright (‘the light that burns twice as bright …’ – I am thinking of Blade Runner and replicants, not such a bad allusion, actually).

This book has a clever twist and while tempting to discuss it, in a review (of sorts) one needs to respect future readers. The chapters of this book are very short, and at times it means you have to push yourself a little beyond reading one or two. Let me say reading through to the end is very much worth it. I heard the author speak at a little Giramondo Press reading at Western Sydney University. He appears to be a very forthright, amused, observant writer, cursing at times like a Tasmanian sailor. It might be that maturity, in Sean Rabin’s case, has brought advantages because this is more than a ‘first novel’ – it is the book of someone with both writing and life experience behind him (he has been a script writer and journalist and has at least one unpublished novel before Wood Green under his belt). The novel has received very good reviews, and one hopes for further successes for Rabin. Wood Green, by the by, has all the features (in terms of its plot and setting) of a good little film. All it needs is a New York/French/Tasmanian director to spend a bit of money to bring it to the big screen. While Lucian Clark probably wouldn’t cooperate, the ‘author’s author’ might. Books about writers and their would-be successes and successors, however ironic, are still spurred on by hope. I should know, I appear to have written two of them myself.