Hymn to the Moon
Stephen Picard
152 pages
NZ$17.95 incl. postage
US$22.95 incl. postage overseas
When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself, and one ends by deceiving others. The story of Lara Englewood, a French actress, and her romance with a New Zealand writer.
A writer sits in a two-roomed Waiheke Island bach, stripping Oscar Wilde and himself of their personalities. Outside, an actress from Paris passes – an actress with a colourful and cosmopolitan background of Swiss finishing school and Holloway Prison. The love affair between professional recorder and “a bitch in deep freeze” is told in alternating voices and with a chorus of idiosyncratic individuals who add to the plot’s intrigues while sometimes distracting from its direction. It’s a philosophical as well as physical affair: the carefully note-booked thoughts on men, women and the bits in between are often provocative but not often assimilated. Short-listed (and justifiably so) for the Heinemann Reed Fiction Award, this first novel is exact, exacting and dense with energy.
New Zealand Listener
This is a felicitious first novel written by a young Aucklander completely under the spell of Oscar Wilde.
Christchurch Press
Containing acknowledgements of debt to Oscar Wilde, Picard’s novel seems an examination of the narcissistic nature of romantic love. Bitter, broke, living on Waiheke Island and working on what he calls a “riches to rags” story about Wilde, writer Guy Salmon meets former Parisian film actor and, by virtue of an LSD conviction, inmate of Holloway Prison, Lara Englewood.
In Guy’s hands the narrative shifts smoothly back and forth between the present and the past. The relationship between the two grows then falters while the past reveals the passage of Lara’s life in Europe – early promise, professional success and eventually ostracism. Interspersed with Guy’s narrative are Lara’s diary entries, full of aphorisms and reflections.
Picard’s writing is at its most assured and effective in the passages set in the fashion and film worlds of Europe; the characters who circle Lara while her career is in its ascendancy are sharply observed, as are the environments in which they operate.
New Zealand Herald
His energetic prose vividly evokes the streets of Paris, London and French Polynesia, where the action takes place.
Dominion Star Times
The title of the book is also the name of one of Lara’s underground movies, but this novel is no mundane foray into erotica. It is an excellent read, rich in philosophy and caustic comment on New Zealand (which is not without its truths) and will lead the reader back for a second sitting.
Nelson Evening Mail
Some of the scenes were beautifully crafted, the author has some delightful, dream-like descriptions... Here is a writer with an obvious talent for his craft – someone must have a serious heart-to-heart talk with him about his future endeavours.
Daily Telegraph, Napier
This is a stylish book, though based on a slightly dodgy premise i.e. impoverished writer living on Waiheke Island meets up with impossibly glamorous and beautiful European actress and embarks on passionate affair.... although there is enough fine writing in the telling of the tale to distract me from this unkind thought.
Monitor Magazine
Excerpt...
We drive up to the forecourt of the Diamond Rose Motel. The office has the ambience of a dentist’s waiting room. When the owner appears, the sound of his pinched vowels has Lara grimacing behind a silk scarf. She is pale, slim and beautiful and manages to protrude her figure and obtrude her intellect while I sign the visitors’ book. Our host has one of those characteristic British faces that, once seen are never remembered. He finally leaves us with a bottle of milk and I lunge at her.
It seems a more natural environment to share with her, the motel room. In flight from domestic life, from restaurant to hotel to the privacy of the bedroom. The solo adventure under physical stress is what us Kiwis are supposed to do best.
Something in her eyes describes me as the man I want to be. My blood races, my blood sings, my blood burns. In Lara’s arms I confess to exhaustion – the exhaustion I feel when we get together and don’t make love. And of the times when I go to bed wanting to hold, no more; and how in bed, I want more.
“You just lie back and relax...” she murmurs from under the sheet, and I crack up. “I’ll do everything...”
Afterwards, she says the thrill and excitement that comes from not arousing and being aroused but from knowing and being known is all too rare. And that in the beginning, the really deep questions are never asked.
“What questions?” I asked.
“Women want to know: Do you need me? And men: Will you take care of me and solve my problems.”
“My own problems bore me to death. I prefer other people’s.”
Lara turns her back and picks up Gideons Bible from the bedside table. I lie idly watching a fantail in the patch of blue above my head. There is a slamming of car doors outside and almost immediately very loud music from the lodge nearby.
“I never liked the idea that we only know Christ’s own words through a translation of a translation,” I ventured, staring at her perfect buttocks. In the silence I feel like a beached whale. “I like that Mary Magdalene had seven lovers.”
She closes the Book of Revelations and I go on talking like a prick.
