Experienced young adult author, James Moloney, says that when he visits schools, students ask him how to be a writer, and sometimes their faces fall when he tells them they should do lots of reading.* I know what he means. The more I write, and read, the more I become aware of writers’ styles, strategies and structures, and the more they influence my own writing, or at least, the more I become aware of my own writing.

For example, I recently re-read an Australian classic, Stiff, by Shane Maloney (no relation to James – different spelling) and enjoyed the wry commentary of the book’s ‘hero’, Murray Whelan, on the events chaotically enveloping his life. Soon afterwards, I was writing a short story and found myself adding a touch of what I regard as wry commentary to the protagonist’s views. The further the story went, the more I felt I had found his voice – and mine. That story, ‘Walking the line’, was the Queensland winner in the national Adult Learners’ Week competition in September this year. Thanks heaps, Shane Maloney.

More recently I’ve read two quite different books: The secret pilgrim by John Le Carré, and In a strange room by Damon Galgut.

John Le Carre and his character George Smiley are well known to readers of spy thrillers, although Smiley is more a device in The secret pilgrim for Le Carré to string together a series of short stories. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, and noticed some delightful observations from the author along the way, including:

‘She was a tall woman and must once have been beautiful, but preferred to wear the signs of her neglect.’

‘And much time was spent among these exiled bodies [European émigrés]arguing our niceties about who would be Master of the Royal Horse when the monarchy was restored; and who would be awarded the Order of St Peter and the Hedgehog; or succeed to the Grand Duke’s summer palace once the Communist chickens had been removed from its drawing rooms…’

‘He had recently grown himself a moustache for greater integrity.’

Thriller writers may not be nominated for the Man Booker Prize, but Le Carré’s prose is very engaging in a busy genre.

Damon Galgut, on the other hand, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, in 2010, for The Good Doctor, a book I enjoyed. I picked up the later book, In a strange room, at a book remainders sale, and two features jumped at me as I began to read. For a start, it doesn’t use quotation marks for direct speech. I have come across other examples of this, and must confess I’m not a fan of the style. Perhaps I just did too many punctuation exercises when I was at school.

The other feature of Galgut’s book is that he uses first and third person when talking about the same person, occasionally in the same paragraph. Talk about point of view! Take this example:

‘He turns. Reiner is walking towards him. If he offers one word of apology, if he concedes even the smallest humility, then I will relent.’

The ‘He’ in the first sentence and the ‘him’ in the second are the ‘I’ in the third sentence. It’s not as confusing as I thought it might be, but it is a little disconcerting after Le Carré. And perhaps that’s what Galgut intended.

*In the last blog I mentioned my visit to Riverbend bookshop in Brisbane to listen to James Moloney talk about his new adult novel, The tower mill.

[D R Dymock’s biography of pioneer pilot and global adventurer Bert Hinkler will be published by Hachette Australia in 2013. He also has a non-fiction e-book close to publication – details soon.]

This week sees the launch of J K Rowling’s new adult novel, The casual vacancy, after her string of successes with Harry Potter. One evening last week my wife and I went to the well-known independent bookshop, Riverbend, in the Brisbane suburb of Bulimba, to listen to another successful young adult author who’s tried his hand at writing an adult novel.

 James Moloney is a full-time Australian author who’s written 38 books for children and young adults. But the other night he was talking about his new adult novel,  The Tower Mill, which is set in Brisbane around anti-apartheid riots directed at the visiting South African rugby team in 1971. I have a signed copy of his book, and am looking forward to reading it, particularly as I was living in Brisbane at the time the book is set. Although based around historical events, however, the book is fictional, and revolves around the relationship between a mother and her son.

I was intrigued by some of what James Moloney said in response to the questions put to him by Riverbend owner, Suzy Wilson (both of whom are mentioned early in the book). Moloney suggested there seemed to be a feeling around that authors who wrote for children finally had to write a book for adults to ‘validate’ their ability as writers. He said that the plot of The Tower Mill had been whirling in his head for 15 years, and he had written it now, not because he needed to validate his writing ability, but because he was ready to write it.

Part of the reason he wrote the book was to vent some of the feelings he had about the role of the Queensland Premier of the day, Joh Bjelke Petersen (later Sir Joh), whose attitudes and actions influenced not only police responses to the anti-apartheid protesters, but the direction of Queensland politics into the mid 1980s. Moloney said he had used some of his young adult novels to examine his own feelings about certain social issues, such as racism. (He quoted a couple of titles and related issues, but I wasn’t taking notes.)

I was also interested to hear James Moloney say he had tried to write the novel in the style of an author he admired, but the UQ Press editors convinced him he should stick to what he did best, telling a story. So even full-time professional experienced authors need, and heed, editorial advice.

In a brief conversation I had with James Moloney, when I compared him and J K Rowling as YA authors writing their first adult novels, he was quick to tell me, smilingly, that he didn’t move in those sorts of circles, but that he admired the British author for the way she had brought children’s literature to the forefront of bookshelves.

[D R Dymock’s biography of pioneer pilot and global adventurer Bert Hinkler will be published by Hachette Australia in 2013. He also has a non-fiction e-book in the wings, and a fiction short story, ‘Walking the Line’, was the Queensland winner in a national competition for Adult Learners’ Week in September.]