Bryony Rheam in conversation with Drew Shaw

 Reproduced from https://www.centre-for-english-excellence.com/articles/bryony-rheam-in-conversation-with-drew-shaw-in-bulawayo-may-2021

Congratulations, Bryony, on the launch of your latest novel, All Come to Dust (which was published by amaBooks in 2020)! It’s an intriguing, markedly different follow-up, in many ways, to your acclaimed debut novel This September Sun (published by amaBooks in 2009), which topped the Amazon UK charts, won the Best First Book at the Zimbabwe Publishers Awards, and later became an A-level English text in Zimbabwe. Both novels have also been published by Parthian in Wales. In 2006 you won the Intwasa Arts Festival Short Story Competition, and more recently you won a ‘Write your own Christie’ award and a Morland scholarship, so you have an accumulated list of achievements.  In addition to writing, you teach at Girls’ College where you are the head of the English Department, and I know you have a partner and two daughters and numerous other commitments. When do you find time to write, and have you got any tips for aspiring writers?

There is never enough time to write, but somewhere along the line, I manage to fit it in. I don’t do as much as I would like though. I think time is a funny thing – the more you have of it, the more you waste. I didn’t realise this until my eldest daughter was born. I used to write when she was asleep, and I really made use of the time. It’s surprising how much you can do in twenty minutes if you put your mind to it. There is a lot of wasted time in the day. At one time, I used to write while I was cooking. I’d sit at the kitchen table and just write whatever came to me in the few minutes it took for a pot to boil! I think you just have to do it. Don’t think: I have to sit down and write a novel; think, I have to write something. Even a couple of lines is a start.

 

I know you were born in Kadoma in 1974, moved to Bulawayo when you were young and attended Whitestone Primary School then Girls’ College, and you’ve lived in England, Singapore and Zambia before returning to Zimbabwe. Can you tell us about your journey to becoming an author. What was your earliest inspiration?

I have always wanted to be a writer and can remember putting together little books I had made when I was about six. They were about three tiny pages long! My biggest inspiration, I think, was Enid Blyton. I know some people don’t think much of her writing, particularly these days, but I loved her books. When I was about 13, I read her biography. She may not have been the nicest of people, but she was a very astute businesswoman. She was the first writer, never mind woman, to trademark her signature and her book sales made her into a very wealthy person.

You have written several short stories in addition to your novels: for example, in the Short Writings from Bulawayo series - stories such as ‘The Queue’, ‘Something about Tea’, ‘The Rhythm of Life’, ‘Miss Parker and the Tugboat' and ‘The Piano Tuner'. Then there is ‘The Reunion', for which you won the Intwasa Arts Festival competition in 2006, and also ‘Christmas’ in Weaver Press’s Laughing Now collection. Are there any plans to publish these as a collection? And do you prefer the short story or the novel form: is the writing process similar or quite different?

Parthian and amaBooks want to publish a collection, probably next year. I like writing short stories, especially if you just want to capture a particular moment or idea. It is still quite a lengthy process though, although sometimes I just get an idea and write it really quickly.

This September Sun is a novel about two main characters Ellie and Evelyn, a granddaughter and grandmother who form a close bond and have overlapping stories from different eras. The lives of both are lived mostly in Zimbabwe yet partly in the UK. Although it is fictional, many have remarked on how ‘real’ This September Sun reads - almost like a memoir. Who or what inspired Ellie and Evelyn, and were you able to draw on your own or other people’s real-life experiences in any way?

 

Yes, everyone thinks it is an autobiographical novel – and it is in many ways, but it also isn’t. I drew on many incidents from real life, for example the fact that Ellie doesn’t like swimming and doesn’t feel she fits into Zimbabwean society. That was very much me. Some of the incidents, I exaggerated or changed in some way.

My real grandmother was a lovely lady who had had a fairly troubled life. She was funny and clever, but had never really been given the chance to develop herself and her talents. Her son was killed in a car accident when he was 21 and she was, understandably, totally devastated by his death. This happened five years before I was born, but it dominated the early part of my life. I remember lots of tears, heated arguments, and various people trying to help her. I didn’t realise until I started writing This September Sun how much I had been affected by my uncle’s death and I had never met him. Sometimes I found myself crying whilst writing. It was the overwhelming sadness of the situation and the fact that, as a child, there was so much I didn’t understand.

Evelyn is quite different to my grandmother, yet I felt that in some way I was giving my grandmother an alternative story to live. It was a ‘what if she had done this instead of that?’

I’m sure you were delighted when This September Sun was chosen to become a set book in Zimbabwean schools, which means a wide spectrum of pupils are now reading it. 

Have you got any thoughts on why it was chosen; and what do you hope young readers will get out of it?

It's funny, I don’t actually know why it was chosen. I didn’t think that it would the kind of book ZIMSEC would like, but I am glad they did. A young reader once wrote to me and thanked me for writing This September Sun as it gave them an insight into white Zimbabwean society. I feel that in many African novels, white people are portrayed as ‘bad’ or, at best, very hard, unemotional people. What I hope readers will see is a common humanity, a life that we all share whatever our skin colour. People suffer loss, love, joy and hatred whoever they are and wherever they are.

Your two novels are quite different in terms of genre, yet there is some overlap in terms of Mystery. This September Sun is part epistolary, part Bildungsroman, Romance and Mystery, as John Eppel has described it. On the other hand All Come to Dust is mostly Murder Mystery, within the category of Crime Fiction. Did you always want to write a Whodunnit, and can you explain the transition to this genre?

I have always loved crime fiction. I don’t like violent crime or plots concerning psychopaths and that sort of thing! I enjoy the puzzle – working out a character’s motivation and trying to decide which clues are meaningful and which are red herrings. I therefore thought I would like to try writing my own. When I finished it, I thought ‘never again’, but now I have a couple of plot ideas for other mysteries. I think in future I would make them shorter though and more specifically ‘crime’. All Come to Dust is a crime novel, but it is also a comment on Zimbabwean society. I think I might be tempted to leave that out next time.

 

In fact both your novels are ‘two in one’ type stories. In This September Sun we have the separate yet linked narratives of Ellie and Evelyn. In All Come to Dust we have the mystery of ‘Who killed Marcia Pullman?’ but also the strange disappearance of Chief Inspector Edmund Dube’s adoptive parents. What attracted you to this ‘two-pronged’ approach? And was it hard to do?

I like the idea of different perspectives, how different people can view the same incident differently. I also like exploring the idea that the past is always with us, and that often, in order to understand the present, we need to go back to the past. I didn’t find it difficult to do, although with Ellie and Evelyn I had to always be aware of creating two different characters.

Why did you decide to set your fiction, most of it, in Bulawayo? Does the city hold special significance for you?

I think it’s always easier to write about a place you know and have a connection with. Some of This September sun was set in the UK, and I felt I could do that because I had lived there. I don’t know if I would be so confident about doing that now, having been away from it so long. Bulawayo is an interesting place, a real mix of people and different attitudes. When I was growing up, there were a lot of very strict, no nonsense, school teacher types. Many of them had come out to Africa at the end of the Second World War and they embodied the way of thinking of that time. However, as I got older, there was a growth in quite an arty, different sort of crowd. There was an influx of expats after 1980 and I think they influenced Bulawayo society which was generally very conservative. Bulawayo has always attracted rather different types. If you are looking for an expert on anything, from butterflies to 5th century Japanese architecture, you don’t have to go very far!

In This September Sun you explore travelling and belonging: Ellie can’t wait to ‘escape’ overseas, then ends back in Bulawayo, re-examining where she really belongs. In All Come to Dust, your diverse set of characters all struggle, to varying extents, to establish their place and purpose in a Bulawayo community. But it’s Chief Inspector Edmund Dube who perhaps grapples most with his own identity and sense of belonging - an outsider in so many respects. I’m very interested in these themes. Were you consciously exploring them?

Until I wrote This September Sun, I don’t think I appreciated how many people consider themselves to be outsiders – I thought I was the only one! I suppose it’s inevitable in a way when you have a mix of people from different countries and cultures in one place. I always found white society very narrow and one where you were expected very much to fit in. If you didn’t fit in, you were out. Simple. It was only when I came back to Bulawayo after being away for about eight years, that I began to realise that, in my own way, I had been equally as narrow. This is what Ellie discovers after her grandmother’s death. She had always thought Miles, Evelyn’s boyfriend, was a typical ‘Rhodie’, but actually he is the one who reads Shakespeare.

In All Come To Dust, all the main characters struggle with a sense of loss and a feeling of not being on the inside. Here, I was more open to the idea that even people who appear to fit in – Craig, the archetypal Bulawayo man, Edmund, the police officer – don’t. Marcia Pullman is the kind of person who lets you know whether you belong or not according to whether you are invited to her book club and bridge parties. Nobody particularly likes her, but they will never challenge her because they are afraid of being left out. I feel this is very relevant in Zimbabwean society. The people with money call the shots, even socially.

Edmund has never felt he really fitted in, but he does not appreciate this as a strength, which, of course, it is. He was the only black boy in a white school just before Independence, and he’s also determined to fight crime without getting involved in corruption. I think his early experience of being isolated prepares him to be able to stand alone as an adult.

I think you have a trademark style, in terms of Zimbabwean literature at least. Your descriptions of time and place, mood and character are incredibly detailed. There is a carefully-observed picture of what’s on the street or in a house, or what characters had for supper, a focus on every-day minutia - and one might call this a classic realist style. At the same time, your protagonists engage in quite detailed interior monologues - reflections, observations, and heightened self-reflexivity (Ellie, most notably, in This September Sun) that might be called modernist. So there’s a simultaneous exploration of the external and internal in your work. How did you develop this style and was it a conscious choice? It also seems you write longer books than most Zimbabwean authors - a joy for your reading fans, but probably time consuming on your part. What are the challenges, and were you inspired by any authors in particular?

Thank you for saying I have a trademark style – that is quite a compliment! There are times when I look at the size of my books and think, ‘Bryony, you need to stop writing.’ To me, a setting is very important – that and atmosphere. I like little details because I think they can tell the reader so much, and when I write I have a picture in my mind. I can see the person stirring the tea and the tea whirling round. I don’t know if I could write differently. It may take more time, but I don’t think I would feel it was me if I didn’t write like this. I have taken parts out though when editing. An author I love is Scott Fitzgerald. I wouldn’t claim to write like him, but he has definitely been an influence. Another writer is Virginia Woolf – I like the attention she gives to the small, everyday details that are part of our lives.

All Come to Dust has struck chords with a wide age range in Bulawayo. I met an eighty-nine-year-old lady who loved it, as did my twelve-year-old nephew who commandeered his mother’s copy and got similarly engrossed. Do you have any thoughts on why the detective genre has a broad appeal? What appeals about the Whodunnit and does it allow you to explore society in a particular way?

I met someone once who told me she had no interest at all in murder mysteries. She said she really did not care who ‘did it’. I believe she is the exception to the rule; so many people enjoy trying to work out who ‘the murderer is’. There are those who can just read or watch something for pure entertainment and never think about twists and turns and how you as a reader/viewer are being manipulated, and there are others who enjoy the challenge of trying to work it out. Once you get into a habit of reading crime, you realise you are also actively involved in the novel. Your understanding and interpretation of events is part of the novel’s success or failure. I think that can be quite fun.

As a writer, I think crime does allow you to explore society in a different way. What I love about Agatha Christie is that she creates these beautiful quaint English villages that are seething with murderers. She believed everyone is capable of murder, and that’s a very frightening thought. Modern crime suggests that murderers are psychopaths and easily identifiable as such. That’s where it all goes wrong. You finish the book and feel separate from the murderer: he was just some nut case who had an unhealthy relationship with his mother. It’s much more unsettling to discover the nice old lady who serves tea and biscuits every Sunday at church has been slowly knocking off members of the congregation because she didn’t want her past to come to light.

Who or what was the inspiration for Chief Inspector Edmund Dube in All Come to Dust and are we likely to see him again?

I was drawn to the idea of a policeman who wanted to do a good job. He wanted to solve a crime and was tired of the police force being something of a laughing stock. I also like the idea of a policeman with his own issues, his own darkness that needs healing. A couple of people have asked me if I would write another book with him in it, and initially I said no, but now I am thinking he could go out on his own as a private investigator. That might be an idea.

The hapless Craig Martin, in All Come to Dust, my nephew’s favourite character, provides a certain amount of comic relief. Who or what inspired him?

I love Craig! I am so glad I gave him a haircut at the end. Craig was initially in a short story I was developing. He wasn’t as lonely in the story as he did have friends, but they were all married with children and he couldn’t seem to get his life together. I had a boyfriend when I was about 18, who drove a Renault. It was a slightly different model to Craig’s. He also had a mullet (but it was OK then because it was 1992!) He had a very different character to Craig though.

Both your novels are about solving mysteries and uncovering secrets, which seems to drive the plot. Can you talk about your interest in mysteries and secrets, and how easy or difficult is it to structure a novel around them?

I have always absolutely loved mysteries and secrets. I think it all started with reading The Secret Garden as a child, and all those Famous Five books where they discovered treasure and secret passageways!

I think every family has secrets, and those secrets only come out over a period of time. You get different versions of the truth from different people and, of course, the very idea of an absolute truth is flawed. Memories change, feelings change, motivation changes. We all have family myths, stories that are handed down as truths, but have inevitably been changed. However, it is important to know these. I think they are part of who we are.

Can you tell us about what you are working on at present? What’s it called and what will it be about?

Earlier on in the year, I finished The Dying of the Light, a novel set in Bulawayo in the late 1930s, which involves around an incident at a place called Bisset Hall, an institution moulded loosely on Ingutsheni. I have now started a novel which I think will be more for young adults, although I hope it is the type of book that everyone will enjoy. It is about a young man who has ruined his life through drink and drugs. His very well-off grandfather gives him a challenge which is to manage a very big, old departmental store in Bulawayo that is currently divided into little shops. He is told he can do anything with it, as long as he clears everyone out. What he doesn’t know is that his grandfather is essentially using him to empty the building, which he has other plans for. Meanwhile, the young man sets about restoring the shop to its former glory, even going as far as trying to recruit some of the old staff or their family members.

Have you got any thoughts about other Zimbabwean writers and writing at the present moment?

I think Zimbabwean writing has been a bit in the doldrums and needs some sort of boost. One of the most promising writers at the moment is Siphiwe Ndlovu. I just loved her book, The History of Man. I find it frustrating, however, that the best writing often comes from outside the country. It’s hard to be a writer here. It’s impossible to make enough money to live on. I really feel we need things like competitions with big prizes, scholarships and sponsorship.

That would be nice. I think there's nevertheless a lot of excellent writing coming out of Zimbabwe as well as the Diaspora. Conventional publishing opportunities seem to have shrunk here... But it's nevertheless nice to see award winners such as Siphiwe Ndlovu coming back to Bulawayo to work on new writing. It was a real achievement for you both to win Morland Scholarships to continue your work, and I very much enjoyed our discussion about the City of Kings as a character in your novels. It's wonderful also that you yourself returned from several years in the Diaspora, and I have an idea there's symbiotic overlap and interchange between those writing from within Zimbabwe and without (a topic perhaps for another discussion). Let’s hope we can continue promoting the value of literature in Bulawayo and beyond. Bryony, thank you very much for the conversation.