In November 2012, Unity Books hosted the launch of Kate de Goldi’s novel The ACB With Honora Lee. Nearly three years later, celebrations were underway again – same bookshop, same author, new book. On 24 September 2015, we launched Kate’s latest novel, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle – a book Kate described as ‘for the eleven year old in all of us’.
Catherine O’Loughlin of Penguin Random House spoke first, representing a team that was ‘delighted and proud’ to have published ‘just the most beautiful novel’. She remarked that the copy in her household was snapped up by anyone and everyone – niece, son and husband alike. She acknowledged the roles played by various people, both from the PRH team and beyond.
Barbara Larson was up next, starting off by thanking ‘Unity and the staff of Unity’ before commenting on the many familiar faces. She talked about publishers compiling keywords for search engines and the like, and said that for From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle she came up with some 150 before running out of steam – and could probably have done 150 more. She gave a few examples to illustrate the breadth of the novel: ‘brother, sister, neighbour, street kids, foster care, homeless’ to ‘earthquakes, aftershocks’ and ‘monopoly, Typhoid Mary’.
‘Barney Kettle opens up worlds of possibilities,’ she said. ‘At first, it could be High Street in any city. Much is laugh-out-loud funny – we know the story turns dark but you’ll get caught up as I did.’ She finished up with further positive points about working on the book with Kate: ‘I’ve loved watching this story develop.’
Kate herself was the final speaker, first thanking Barbara (‘Thank you for your encompassing intelligence.’) and acknowledging what she assumes she must be like to work with as an author (‘I’m the slowest writer in the Western world.’) She sang the praises of Penguin Random House, or ‘as we like to call them, the Random Penguins’, as well as Bruce Foster (her husband) and illustrator Gregory O’Brien. She described Unity as ‘home away from home’, before elaborating further to include the nearby Wellington Central Library as part of a city-side ‘nexus of happiness’.
She talked about how the story grew from her nephew Rowan’s occasionally megalomaniacal childhood exploits – commandeering neighbourhood kids and creating films whenever he got the chance. She also particularly wanted to write about community. ‘In children’s literature, the ‘I’ is overtaking the ‘we’.’ There was an additional desire to write about ‘the colonial and vertical history’, and to ‘revisit the adult world through the lens of a child’.
After the speeches, Kate signed copies for fans and friends of all ages with the piles stacked around the counter being churned through at a thoroughly impressive rate.
From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle (Longacre) is $30 and available in store now or from our online shop HERE.
Photography by Matt Bialostocki, words by Briar Lawry.
