In the midst of grief, Marele Day boarded a catamaran bound for overseas … but the skipper was hiding a shocking secret
Q Back in the 80s and 90s you wrote a mystery series featuring Claudia Valentine, a bold private investigator cracking cases in Sydney. In Reckless you fly to France and even Brazil looking for answers about your friend, Jean Kay and what really happened with the heist. Did you ever think that your life would be imitating art like this?
A No! I’ve already read my life once having lived it, and in my novels I want to go to unexplored territories. Brazil was not a destination I ever would have thought of because it has a reputation for being a little bit dangerous. But by then I was on a roll [with writing Reckless] and being, if you like, a bit reckless myself, I just thought: ‘I’ll go wherever I have to go for the story.’
Q Jean is no longer alive. What do you think he’d make of Reckless and knowing other people will now have access to his story?
A I think he would be happy with it as he was prepared to hand the story over to me to write and sent me newspaper clippings about him that weren’t always complimentary.
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Jean only saw one piece of my writing of it; I sent him the scene where he’s concocting plans to rob the safe. He said, ‘Yes, bravo, I like your detail’, so in a way that did give me carte blanche for the rest.
I didn’t want to eulogise or make him into a hero, though. Jean was a writer and he would understand that you can’t do a rose-coloured glasses kind of job. If you want authenticity, you have to show the smooth skin and the warts.
Q After publishing seven novels, Reckless is your first non-fiction book. How different was the experience of writing a memoir?
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A I thought it would be easy because I didn’t have to make anything up, everything was there. The difficulty was being a private person, a low-discloser. The grief I write about in the book is quite mushy; even 45 years later, I can still burst into tears. So I imagined I was telling the story to one trusted reader, an old friend … and sometimes that friend was Jean.
Q Claudia Valentine is still remembered today, and in 2019 your novel, Lambs of God, was made into a mini-series over 20 years after its publication. How does it feel for you to know your work has had such longevity at a time when many books can disappear as soon as they’re released and our attention spans are becoming increasingly shorter?
Q I’m tremendously grateful. When I was approached about a TV series for Lambs of God, I thought ‘Let’s see how far this goes’ but they made it and it’s amazing. To know your writing is still remembered and slipped into people’s cultural references is not something a writer could ever take for granted.
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Q Some writers are disappointed at adaptations of their work, what did you think of Lambs of God?
A It really sticks closely to the atmosphere of the book. I met with the production company who asked what I did and didn’t want. I told them to keep the nun’s lifestyle and respect it. I went on-set, where they filmed the interiors at Fox Studios, Sydney, and it was amazing to see all the trouble they’d gone to – there were 100 people there. I felt a bit guilty they were taking it all so seriously!
Q There’s also a scene in Reckless where you need to do something courageous, and you hear the voice of Claudia egging you on. Do your characters always stay with you after the book is finished?
A Claudia does! Even after the four books were written, and the last one was published in 1994, it was set on the HSC reading list and I’d often be invited to schools to do talks. Claudia’s a taller, braver, alter ego who’s smarter with the one-liners than me.
