By David Hill, Kete Books
Photo: Allen & Unwin & Stephen Tilley
'Paddy' Gower is most impressive in this memoir when he's most vulnerable.
Media memoirs. Attempts to shape something permanent from mostly ephemeral material? Cashing in on febrile, fleeting fame?
Ah, but Patrick James Gower isn't like that. He doesn't even look like that - and his looks are a motif in this diverting, sometimes affecting narrative. He comes across more like a journo from a gritty thriller: a bit battered, more than a bit addicted, basically decent and always determined. Oh, and he swears a lot; the F-bomb explodes about every two pages.
Even growing up in a proudly working-class, left-voting, Catholic family in New Plymouth, ''I had one hell of a mouth on me - in more ways than one.'. It's part of his defence against bullying.
Later, at Victoria University, the same mouth is used to swallow damaging amounts of alcohol, as well as to goad Winston Peters in a takeaway bar.
So far, so boyish. Then he somehow gets a job on the night shift at the 'Granny' NZ Herald. He chases stories on immigrant abuse in Remuera, the denuding of One Tree Hill's summit. He experiences the sphincter-clenching delight of seeing his name on the front page. He's hooked.
He's also learning to face up to blunders, and his honesty is one of the book's rewarding features.
Those blunders include the infantile 'Battle of the Babes' theme, when Jacinda Ardern and Nikki Kaye squared off in Auckland Central; his ill-prepared session with ''free speech' manipulators Stefan Molyneuxand Lauren Southern; his own booze battles on the job. He admits, doesn't exploit. Good.
After print journalism, it's TV3, though, ''I did not look like a classic TV reporter… I was an unusual-looking dude.'. He's a reporter-in-general, then a political reporter, a presenter and host. You've all seen him; he's everywhere.
So, inevitably, much of the book's middle is a skip from programme to programme, place to place, person to person. He holds up a motorcade in Agra; asks Donald Trump ''What sort of President would you be for the world?'' (excellent); flies to Antarctica; watches Bernie Monk cry inside the Pike River Mine. A student asks him about wanting to go into television but being afraid of what people will say about her appearance. A Trump supporter, when Paddy mentions NZ, asks ''What's 'Zealand'?''
And he battles his addictions. Again, the honesty comes through. He describes the blackouts and hangovers of his drinking.
He's most impressive when he's most vulnerable: his own tribulations; his Mum's death; his involvement with Al Noor Mosque survivors and families; his work on behalf of cystic fibrosis. You watch him cry - and swear. You want to hug the guy.
Names famous and forgotten fleck the pages: John Key (''quite good"); Winston Peters ("Paddy, Paddy, Paddy..."); lingerie-lite Gandalf, the cannabis conveyer; a Kiwi-Aussie rapper called Fortafy; multitudes more. If you find yourself asking ''who?'', that's another indication of media transience.
Lots of photos. Our man is seen in the company of Barack Obama; in front of Westminster Abbey; in bed with a detached retina; in a Chinook helicopter; in head-high weed. They're as varied as his assignments.
The title? He said it, almost inadvertently, a decade back. I never knew about it, but it swept the country, appearing on mugs, T-shirts, even tattoos. Immortality of a sort.
Every scene is covered briskly, clearly, and at much the same pace, before we zip on to the next. The writing (credit co-author Eugene Bingham here) is accessible, colloquial. You hear the Gower voice coming through, which is always a bonus in a memoir, and you feel it's talking to you over a glass of something, which is an extra bonus. The F-word and its mates soon fade into a sort of background static.
So do some of the events. It's a wide coverage, occasionally deep. Its publishers evidently expect strong reactions; my copy came with a non-disclosure-till-release agreement. Its best bits are when the guy unburdens to you. And an excellent guy he seems. Not bad. Not too f#$%ing bad at all, Paddy.
- This review was originally published on Kete Books and is reproduced here with kind permission.
