Elizabeth Knox discusses The Absolute Book at the Word Christchurch festival

Highlights of the discussion

After a generous reading from the opening of the novel, Elizabeth Knox begins by discussing its protagonist, Taryn Cornick, who responds to the trauma of the death of her sister by organising what she hopes will be an untraceable hit on the man who was responsible.

Noelle McCarthy:

Taryn is hovering at the edge of something, and it is an act of revenge in response to an act of brutality.

Elizabeth Knox:

Yes, she can’t get over the murder of her sister, and she can’t bear the fact that the murderer, who was only tried for manslaughter because they couldn’t prove intent (which if anyone wants to say is improbable has happened – personal experience here!). She can’t bear the fact that this murderer is going to be in the world and her sister isn’t.

And if she had to accomplish the revenge herself, she probably would have been utterly helpless. She wouldn’t know what to do. But she just manages to beguile this person who is willing to do it and she never tries hard enough to think why he’s willing.

And this is not the end. “You know,” he says, “This is only going to work if we never see each other again.” But that’s not going to happen because he’s expressing his needs and his needs are different.

Noelle McCarthy:

He’s not just willing to do it. He wants to.

Elizabeth Knox:

He’s a person who isn’t quite alive in his own emotions. So he latches onto her powerful feelings. He enacts her revenge but it doesn’t fill the helpless gap that’s inside him. He never understands himself or explains himself enough that you get that from him.

So Taryn is left to try and find out what the hell has happened to her because she’s so deeply responsible. She’s, at least in the end, responsible to understand what she’s done to this man who’s taken revenge for her.

So that’s one of the stories that plays itself out. But in the meantime, she does break all the locks on the door to her soul.

Noelle McCarthy:

She’s like a heroine. I read it as the story of her becoming a heroine –

Elizabeth Knox:

Yes

Noelle McCarthy:

– becoming herself. It’s a very relatable story in the sense that you start off with a character who’s been devastated by an event in her life that she had no control over, and didn’t expect. And then she proceeds to make a lot of mistakes.

Elizabeth Knox:

Yes. She does. It’s a story of someone who basically has a lot going for her and then is broken by something and continues to compound her difficulties, and then in the end figures out how to make herself useful. It’s a story where the most important characters are finding how to make themselves useful to the world.

Noelle McCarthy:

And useful to each other as well. There is such a tenderness in some of these relationships. One of the characters is only glimpsed. There’s something about him which means we can’t ever quite see him.

Elizabeth Knox:

That’s right.

Noelle McCarthy:

And yet between he and Taryn, something forms. A very real and powerful relationship forms.

Elizabeth Knox:

Taryn’s one of my heroines, I’ve got a number of them if anyone wanted to trace a line through my books, who are alienated by trauma from their own sexual selves. With her it was the intention of sexual violence that caused her sister’s death, and she forms a kind of carapace of suspicion about men’s desire.

About the author

Elizabeth Knox CNZM is the author of thirteen novels, three novellas, and a book of essays. Elizabeth won the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction, 2019. Her novel The Absolute Book is to be published in the US and UK in 2021.

elizabethknox.com

This session was recorded in partnership with WORD Christchurch