Dreamcatcher

Interview by Barry Goldblatt, New York literary agent.

1. There are so many compelling themes in this novel.  What was the seed from which it grew?

The inspiration for Dreamcatcher was watching my sister struggle to raise a young step daughter.  She tried to do such a good job, but somehow genetics, personalities, society's expectations made the task incredibly difficult and the final result was not quite the fairy tale ending either she or her step daughter yearned for.  It made me want to do a story that was a kind of inversion of the usual Cinderella and the wicked step mother plot.  The father was to be a work-a-holic to keep him out of the action while I explored the theme of a girl and her two mothers who tentatively become friends. 

All was going well until one of the psychologists I was interviewing asked me what I knew about work-a-holics.

'Not a lot,' I had to admit.  The psychologist immediately started to educate me.  She said that work-a-holics were usually well meaning, dedicated people, often in the 'caring' type professions such as doctors, teachers and even politicians.  If they worked too hard for too long the balance between work and family became upset. After a while, their spouse starts to complain they are never home, their kids start being rude and this makes home more unpleasant.  So they spend more time at work.

Meanwhile, they actually become less efficient at work because they never get a break.  Often they burn out, or become so stressed and irritable they get sacked.  Ultimately they can destroy not only themselves, but the whole family. 

It was frightening - and fascinating - stuff.  I walked out of the interview with a completely different slant on the novel.

2. Where did the title Dreamcatcher come from?

Well, here I was, doing all this research on step parenting and politicians and work-a-holics - but not much actual writing.  That was because I didn't have what I call the 'thread' of the book.  For me, the title is the thread, it gives you the theme and I often write whole books from the title.

It was my sister, once again, who helped with the inspiration here, though she didn't know it.  Back from a visit to Canada she bought me a dreamcatcher.  I'd never seen one before but I found the idea strangely haunting.  In fact I got goose bumps when I read the legend.  I hung the dreamcatcher in my studio where it sort of stayed there, waiting. 

Then one night our daughter woke up with nightmares about 'waves chasing her'. (We'd been swimming in the surf that day.)  I fetched the dreamcatcher from my study and hung it over her bed.  Then curled up next to her I told her how American Indians believed that dreamcatchers trapped the bad dreams in the night air and held them fast in the web until the first rays of the morning light came and burnt them away. 

Our daughter soon fell asleep.  But I stayed on, curled up in about 30 centimeters of space, feeling all the braids of the story suddenly churning, forming, weaving themselves together.  Why did Tess have nightmares?  Because her father was always making promises and never there.  Why was Tess so passionate about the Green Guerrillas?  Because it was a form of rebellion against her father, and also an outlet for her intelligence and idealism.  How would Laura, so strong, so tense, cope?  Maybe Tess could help her in the end, but only when she because strong enough herself.  It was an amazing feeling. Everything just seemed to work itself together.  Three hours later I came out and scribbled down pages and pages of notes.  The next day, I started writing.

3. Tess' struggle to avoid having to choose between her two families feels so honest.  Is this from personal experience?

Well, I'm glad I was so convincing.  But in all honesty, I come from a classic nuclear family with only one mother to choose from and a father who made it very clear that we kids were vitally important to him. My mother once presented a talk to her book group linking the turmoil of some writer's life to the themes of the book he had written.  She said it must have sprung from personal experience.  I argued with her, saying that often a writer does create things out of the sky.  Ideas come from other people, books, bits of conversation, newspaper articles, just thinking aloud - and then you put yourself in that character's place and imagine for long hours how they would feel.  I showed her the draft of this novel and asked her if she thought it had come from personal experience.  She went pale!

4. The last section of the book involves the attempted rescue of a beached whale.  How did you do your research for it?

I loved the idea of having a beached whale as part of the reconciliation scene between Tess and her father.  That was until I discovered the only whale expert I could find lived in Tasmania. You can see in my acknowledgments page that I relied greatly on Bob Warneke's help and advice.  He spent hours on the phone while I asked some incredibly basic whale questions.  When I finally wrote the scenes, I sent him the draft and then had to rework several chapters in a major way because, never having seen a whale beached, I had not always asked the right questions.  Bob was very patient.  There was only one question I had trouble with: do whales have eyelids.  I finally had to ring 'Sea World' to get the answer. (Yes, they do.)

5. Are you yourself an environmental activist?

When I became a mother I suddenly became an environmentalist as well because I started seeing what we sprayed on our food, pumped into the air and tossed down our kid's throats as food.  I mean, have you ever read the ingredients on the back of a snack food packet - and understood it?  I guess Greenpeace is my favourite group.  With their action campaigns they have captured the public's awareness and imagination in a way that other, more conservative organizations have yet to do. Good for them.  I'd hate for our kids to be packing their own children off to school one day with the liturgy: 'Have you packed your lunch?  Have you cleaned your teeth?  Have you got your gas mask on?

6. Tess longs to be loved and appreciated by her father, yet she also fiercely wants to be her own person.  Do you think most adolescents face this battle at some point?  Is it simply unavoidable?

Ah, I'm really not sure on that one, but we have a 12 year old and a 14 year old and I desperately hope NOT because we have to live with them!  Adolescents are at such a stormy time of life - they want to be free, they are scared to be free.  Their friends, their schools, their hormones tell them they are almost adult, but sometimes the adult world is totally overwhelming.  I always think adolescents fight so fiercely because they are so unsure of themselves.  Somehow you have to let them know you are on their side, even if you have different attitudes to life.  (And different attitudes to all night parties too.)

That's the theory.  I'll let you know how the actual practice goes any day now!