It was the happiest summer... but something ugly did happen

The Advertiser

10-07-2025

I think I have always wanted to write a novel drenched in heat. A long, hot, summer novel of the type I loved to read when growing up.
The only problem being, we don't really have those sorts of summers in New Zealand. At least not on the Kpiti coast, where I spent a lot of my summers as a child.
The Kpiti coast is a beautiful but wild stretch of coastline not far north of Wellington, where the beach stretches on, unbroken, for miles.
Driftwood is strewn about, and waves crash in. The water is not reliably warm. The word that comes to mind is "rugged".
It took me a long time to accept that this is the landscape I would have to explore if I was ever going to write my summer novel - that I could not shape the setting to fit my story; the story was going to have to be shaped to fit the setting.
What sort of story fitted the Kpiti coast? I realised it would have to include danger, and mystery, and suspense. A beautiful surface, but something bad broiling underneath.
I thought of one particular summer when I was 10 years old. The year was 1985. We stayed in a beach house that disappointed me on arrival because it was so small and so plain, but that beach house quickly became a hub for our family and friends, who joined us for evening barbecues and days spent sunbathing on the lawn.
There was a lagoon behind the house and a little rowboat which I rowed back and forth, imagining myself an Olympic champion.
It was one of the happiest summers of my life - a very special moment in time for which I will always be grateful - but something ugly did happen that summer, that has stayed with me ever since.
The ugly thing was this: a man staying at the beach house next door liked to sit out on his deck and watch us over the fence. In particular, he liked to watch my mother and sister sunbathe. He even called out to them at one point - instructing them to "roll over".
My father walked out into the middle of that flat lawn and shook his fist. My mother calmly suggested to my sister that they roll up their towels and move their sunbathing to the other side of the house.
It was a shocking thing for a 10-year-old to witness. My mother and sister, objectified. It stayed with me for years and years, becoming one of those memories that I wasn't sure I trusted.
Did that really happen? Did my father really shake his fist? My mother, interestingly, at first had no recollection of it. Only after I quizzed her about it did something begin to tweak at her memory.
My oldest sister didn't remember it either - I began to doubt myself. But my other sister, who was fourteen at the time, did remember it. That's how I knew that it happened.
All of these factors - my love of the classic summer novel, the savage beauty of the Kpiti coast, that plain, unassuming beach house, the difficulty of memory and a creepy neighbour over the fence - came to form the basis of A Beautiful Family.
I found the voice of my 10-year-old narrator very quickly. It was easy to slip back into that time when imagination and books and music were everything.
I overcame my doubt about writing setting - I had thought I might not be skilled enough - and wrote from memory. Writing more about how the place felt than about how it looked, or would look, on a map.
The further into the book I got, the darker things became. I took away all the things that had made that summer so much fun - cousins, aunts and uncles, friends - and left my narrator marooned alone on that lawn with the creepy neighbour watching her.
I had no idea at the beginning how the novel would end. I just wrote my way into it, and then wrote it again, and again, as all writers do.
Eventually I lost sight of it and put it in a drawer where it stayed for three years, but it never left me - that little narrator stayed with me, nagging at me to give her a chance.
Finally I took the book out of the drawer and sent it out into the world - all the way to England, where, it turned out, people were interested in savage beaches, unreliable weather and the unreliable memories of 10-year-old girls.
That the book has found such an enthusiastic audience is a gift and a wonder to me, and I am still trying to believe that what is happening to me now is real.
Maybe it's something I've made up, just like the book. I hope not.
I think I have always wanted to write a novel drenched in heat. A long, hot, summer novel of the type I loved to read when growing up.
The only problem being, we don't really have those sorts of summers in New Zealand. At least not on the Kpiti coast, where I spent a lot of my summers as a child.
The Kpiti coast is a beautiful but wild stretch of coastline not far north of Wellington, where the beach stretches on, unbroken, for miles.
Driftwood is strewn about, and waves crash in. The water is not reliably warm. The word that comes to mind is "rugged".
It took me a long time to accept that this is the landscape I would have to explore if I was ever going to write my summer novel - that I could not shape the setting to fit my story; the story was going to have to be shaped to fit the setting.
What sort of story fitted the Kpiti coast? I realised it would have to include danger, and mystery, and suspense. A beautiful surface, but something bad broiling underneath.
I thought of one particular summer when I was 10 years old. The year was 1985. We stayed in a beach house that disappointed me on arrival because it was so small and so plain, but that beach house quickly became a hub for our family and friends, who joined us for evening barbecues and days spent sunbathing on the lawn.
There was a lagoon behind the house and a little rowboat which I rowed back and forth, imagining myself an Olympic champion.
It was one of the happiest summers of my life - a very special moment in time for which I will always be grateful - but something ugly did happen that summer, that has stayed with me ever since.
The ugly thing was this: a man staying at the beach house next door liked to sit out on his deck and watch us over the fence. In particular, he liked to watch my mother and sister sunbathe. He even called out to them at one point - instructing them to "roll over".
My father walked out into the middle of that flat lawn and shook his fist. My mother calmly suggested to my sister that they roll up their towels and move their sunbathing to the other side of the house.
It was a shocking thing for a 10-year-old to witness. My mother and sister, objectified. It stayed with me for years and years, becoming one of those memories that I wasn't sure I trusted.
Did that really happen? Did my father really shake his fist? My mother, interestingly, at first had no recollection of it. Only after I quizzed her about it did something begin to tweak at her memory.
My oldest sister didn't remember it either - I began to doubt myself. But my other sister, who was fourteen at the time, did remember it. That's how I knew that it happened.
All of these factors - my love of the classic summer novel, the savage beauty of the Kpiti coast, that plain, unassuming beach house, the difficulty of memory and a creepy neighbour over the fence - came to form the basis of A Beautiful Family.
I found the voice of my 10-year-old narrator very quickly. It was easy to slip back into that time when imagination and books and music were everything.
I overcame my doubt about writing setting - I had thought I might not be skilled enough - and wrote from memory. Writing more about how the place felt than about how it looked, or would look, on a map.
The further into the book I got, the darker things became. I took away all the things that had made that summer so much fun - cousins, aunts and uncles, friends - and left my narrator marooned alone on that lawn with the creepy neighbour watching her.
I had no idea at the beginning how the novel would end. I just wrote my way into it, and then wrote it again, and again, as all writers do.
Eventually I lost sight of it and put it in a drawer where it stayed for three years, but it never left me - that little narrator stayed with me, nagging at me to give her a chance.
Finally I took the book out of the drawer and sent it out into the world - all the way to England, where, it turned out, people were interested in savage beaches, unreliable weather and the unreliable memories of 10-year-old girls.
That the book has found such an enthusiastic audience is a gift and a wonder to me, and I am still trying to believe that what is happening to me now is real.
Maybe it's something I've made up, just like the book. I hope not.
I think I have always wanted to write a novel drenched in heat. A long, hot, summer novel of the type I loved to read when growing up.
The only problem being, we don't really have those sorts of summers in New Zealand. At least not on the Kpiti coast, where I spent a lot of my summers as a child.
The Kpiti coast is a beautiful but wild stretch of coastline not far north of Wellington, where the beach stretches on, unbroken, for miles.
Driftwood is strewn about, and waves crash in. The water is not reliably warm. The word that comes to mind is "rugged".
It took me a long time to accept that this is the landscape I would have to explore if I was ever going to write my summer novel - that I could not shape the setting to fit my story; the story was going to have to be shaped to fit the setting.
What sort of story fitted the Kpiti coast? I realised it would have to include danger, and mystery, and suspense. A beautiful surface, but something bad broiling underneath.
I thought of one particular summer when I was 10 years old. The year was 1985. We stayed in a beach house that disappointed me on arrival because it was so small and so plain, but that beach house quickly became a hub for our family and friends, who joined us for evening barbecues and days spent sunbathing on the lawn.
There was a lagoon behind the house and a little rowboat which I rowed back and forth, imagining myself an Olympic champion.
It was one of the happiest summers of my life - a very special moment in time for which I will always be grateful - but something ugly did happen that summer, that has stayed with me ever since.
The ugly thing was this: a man staying at the beach house next door liked to sit out on his deck and watch us over the fence. In particular, he liked to watch my mother and sister sunbathe. He even called out to them at one point - instructing them to "roll over".
My father walked out into the middle of that flat lawn and shook his fist. My mother calmly suggested to my sister that they roll up their towels and move their sunbathing to the other side of the house.
It was a shocking thing for a 10-year-old to witness. My mother and sister, objectified. It stayed with me for years and years, becoming one of those memories that I wasn't sure I trusted.
Did that really happen? Did my father really shake his fist? My mother, interestingly, at first had no recollection of it. Only after I quizzed her about it did something begin to tweak at her memory.
My oldest sister didn't remember it either - I began to doubt myself. But my other sister, who was fourteen at the time, did remember it. That's how I knew that it happened.
All of these factors - my love of the classic summer novel, the savage beauty of the Kpiti coast, that plain, unassuming beach house, the difficulty of memory and a creepy neighbour over the fence - came to form the basis of A Beautiful Family.
I found the voice of my 10-year-old narrator very quickly. It was easy to slip back into that time when imagination and books and music were everything.
I overcame my doubt about writing setting - I had thought I might not be skilled enough - and wrote from memory. Writing more about how the place felt than about how it looked, or would look, on a map.
The further into the book I got, the darker things became. I took away all the things that had made that summer so much fun - cousins, aunts and uncles, friends - and left my narrator marooned alone on that lawn with the creepy neighbour watching her.
I had no idea at the beginning how the novel would end. I just wrote my way into it, and then wrote it again, and again, as all writers do.
Eventually I lost sight of it and put it in a drawer where it stayed for three years, but it never left me - that little narrator stayed with me, nagging at me to give her a chance.
Finally I took the book out of the drawer and sent it out into the world - all the way to England, where, it turned out, people were interested in savage beaches, unreliable weather and the unreliable memories of 10-year-old girls.
That the book has found such an enthusiastic audience is a gift and a wonder to me, and I am still trying to believe that what is happening to me now is real.
Maybe it's something I've made up, just like the book. I hope not.
I think I have always wanted to write a novel drenched in heat. A long, hot, summer novel of the type I loved to read when growing up.
The only problem being, we don't really have those sorts of summers in New Zealand. At least not on the Kpiti coast, where I spent a lot of my summers as a child.
The Kpiti coast is a beautiful but wild stretch of coastline not far north of Wellington, where the beach stretches on, unbroken, for miles.
Driftwood is strewn about, and waves crash in. The water is not reliably warm. The word that comes to mind is "rugged".
It took me a long time to accept that this is the landscape I would have to explore if I was ever going to write my summer novel - that I could not shape the setting to fit my story; the story was going to have to be shaped to fit the setting.
What sort of story fitted the Kpiti coast? I realised it would have to include danger, and mystery, and suspense. A beautiful surface, but something bad broiling underneath.
I thought of one particular summer when I was 10 years old. The year was 1985. We stayed in a beach house that disappointed me on arrival because it was so small and so plain, but that beach house quickly became a hub for our family and friends, who joined us for evening barbecues and days spent sunbathing on the lawn.
There was a lagoon behind the house and a little rowboat which I rowed back and forth, imagining myself an Olympic champion.
It was one of the happiest summers of my life - a very special moment in time for which I will always be grateful - but something ugly did happen that summer, that has stayed with me ever since.
The ugly thing was this: a man staying at the beach house next door liked to sit out on his deck and watch us over the fence. In particular, he liked to watch my mother and sister sunbathe. He even called out to them at one point - instructing them to "roll over".
My father walked out into the middle of that flat lawn and shook his fist. My mother calmly suggested to my sister that they roll up their towels and move their sunbathing to the other side of the house.
It was a shocking thing for a 10-year-old to witness. My mother and sister, objectified. It stayed with me for years and years, becoming one of those memories that I wasn't sure I trusted.
Did that really happen? Did my father really shake his fist? My mother, interestingly, at first had no recollection of it. Only after I quizzed her about it did something begin to tweak at her memory.
My oldest sister didn't remember it either - I began to doubt myself. But my other sister, who was fourteen at the time, did remember it. That's how I knew that it happened.
All of these factors - my love of the classic summer novel, the savage beauty of the Kpiti coast, that plain, unassuming beach house, the difficulty of memory and a creepy neighbour over the fence - came to form the basis of A Beautiful Family.
I found the voice of my 10-year-old narrator very quickly. It was easy to slip back into that time when imagination and books and music were everything.
I overcame my doubt about writing setting - I had thought I might not be skilled enough - and wrote from memory. Writing more about how the place felt than about how it looked, or would look, on a map.
The further into the book I got, the darker things became. I took away all the things that had made that summer so much fun - cousins, aunts and uncles, friends - and left my narrator marooned alone on that lawn with the creepy neighbour watching her.
I had no idea at the beginning how the novel would end. I just wrote my way into it, and then wrote it again, and again, as all writers do.
Eventually I lost sight of it and put it in a drawer where it stayed for three years, but it never left me - that little narrator stayed with me, nagging at me to give her a chance.
Finally I took the book out of the drawer and sent it out into the world - all the way to England, where, it turned out, people were interested in savage beaches, unreliable weather and the unreliable memories of 10-year-old girls.
That the book has found such an enthusiastic audience is a gift and a wonder to me, and I am still trying to believe that what is happening to me now is real.
Maybe it's something I've made up, just like the book. I hope not.