The Shallow End
Ashley Sievwright

The Shallow End - Ashley Sievwright.
AUD$24.95. Post/packaging = AUD$5

‘It was one of the most perfect days, only just warm enough, an ever so slight breeze I could see in the hairs on my arm and in the flutter of the flags across each end of the pool but couldn’t feel. It must have been the exact temperature of my blood.’

On a cloudless afternoon, a man dives into a crowded swimming pool and disappears. Is it murder, a staged disappearance or alien abduction?

'The Shallow End' — a steady freestyle commentary on sex, celebrity and suntanning.

The Shallow End was shortlisted in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

REVIEWS

Canberra Times - 18 April 2009:
'... a little gem of a novel...'

Read FULL REVIEW

3RRR review by Louise Swinn

INTERVIEW

Where did your inspiration come from for The Shallow End?

The plot of The Shallow End wasn’t difficult to come up with. I just took three of my favourite things - swimming laps, mystery stories and the Prahran Pool in summer - and put them together like this: a lap swimmer mysteriously disappears from the Prahran Pool. Lets face it - not rocket science.

So at first it was going to be a pretty basic mystery kind of plot, but as I wrote it, it changed. The character of the narrator, an unnamed observer, watching at the pool, reading all the stories in the newspaper about the missing swimmer - the book became more about him. He’s just returned to Melbourne from Barcelona and a failed relationship over there. He has no job to come back to, no house, and he doesn’t let his friends and family know he’s back. He’s just lazing around at the Prahran Pool and trying not to think about it. There’s a very hazy ‘lost summer’ kind of feeling about the book that I love.

And as we learn more about the narrator, the book does a gentle little belly flop and becomes something else - it’s still a mystery story, but it becomes a different mystery. What happened in Spain?

What struggles, challenges or experiences from your life have shaped the storyline and characters of your book?

The book actually turned out to be incredibly personal. It’s no accident that the narrator has just returned from Barcelona to Melbourne. It’s no accident that he loves swimming laps and perving at the pool. It’s no accident that he had a relationship explode in his face in Spain.

Interestingly, I don’t write much about the actual time I was in Spain. I write about the aftermath. The first month or so after I returned to Australia from Barcelona. I felt so disconnected from everything. From Australia, from society, from the rut, from the 9-5, from everything. I remember getting to the point when I had no idea what day it was and it began to feel really scary, actually.

And when I eventually tuned back in and got back into circulation, I started talking to people, friends, and telling them about that feeling I had. And everyone knew exactly what I was talking about! They’d all had it at some point too. It’s a feeling that’s almost universal - that feeling we all get sometimes of being a little bit … translucent maybe? I think people in the gay community especially feel this. Not all the time but certainly every now and then - there’s a real disconnect from the mainstream. It can be a wonderful and liberating feeling, but it can also scare the shit out of you.

What are the positives and difficulties of tackling gay subject matter? Why do you think the GLBT will love your book?

The difficulties - unfortunately the biggest difficulty with writing a gay themed book is the danger that you might be labelled or pigeon-holed. That others will think that the book is for a niche market and that it won’t get attention or circulation in the broader market. It’s sad but it’s true. Although not always. Alan Hollinghurst, for example, is a gay writer who won the Booker prize recently. I love hearing stories like that. I also quite liked that a stripper wrote the script for Juno and won the Best Screenplay Oscar last year - that was cool.

The positives - I know that as a reader I love it when I find a good book with a good authentic gay voice. There is something so wonderful about reading something that speaks a little more personally to you, you know? I guess it’s the flip side of that pigeon-hole.

What are the secrets of how you craft copy?

To tell you the truth you just have to do it - there is no secret. Pull your finger out and do it. Every morning when I sat at the computer and started writing I was feeling: this is shit this is shit this is shit. And I’d be checking my email and reading blogs and watching youtube and stuff. But then after about an hour I’d get into it and forget to think it’s shit and you just write it and you start to think it’s ok. The next morning you think it’s all shit again, but you just have to write it anyhow.

What messages and themes come from your book? How relevant are these message and themes and even storyline in today's context?

The Shallow End also looks at the patterns you see in the media surrounding high profile disappearances. At first the missing swimmer is a saint - an absentee-ambassador for gay men in Australia. But then the media turns on him when they find out he’s been visiting sex-on-premises places, and suddenly there’s the backlash.

It’s incredibly interesting to watch this in action right now in the media with the backpacker who has disappeared in Croatia. We’re seeing the saint to sinner thing play out in the papers in real life, the same time as The Shallow End goes into bookstores.

And the interesting thing about this is that we’re all implicated in that backlash in a way. I mean, the media creates it but we read it.

Ashley Sievwright at launch of The Shallow End

What do you think the reader will learn from reading The Shallow End?

Readers may not learn anything as such, but I tell you, I’m almost sure that they will recognise something they have felt, at some point, some time in their own life. And as a reader, it’s that moment of recognition that I love - when you think: yes, I know that feeling - I understand that. I love those little moments in books, and I’m sure there’s one at the end of The Shallow End.

What inspired the name?

Well of course it’s about the pool. The missing swimmer is last seen standing in the shallow end of the pool - that’s the last sighting of him.

Actually, the book is almost a love letter to my favourite pool in Melbourne, the Prahran Pool. I love swimming laps and even though it’s frowned on and is dangerous and all that shit, I don’t mind a bit of tanning either. And Prahran pool on a hot day in summer is a feast for the eyes, I tell you. It’s a great old-school 60s pool smack bang in the middle of Melbourne’s gay ghetto and if you haven’t been there it’s almost worth flying down for a long weekend and a look. On a really hot summer day it’s like being in the clip for Kylie’s Slow. Well, not quite. But close! Actually, the Slow clip was filmed at the Bernat Picornell swimming pool in Barcelona, which I visited when I was there. Interesting synergy - I should have put that in the book.

How long does it take to write a book?

I wrote this book over 2 two month periods. The first two months I did the planning and a very rough first draft. The second two months I wrote the first draft properly. Then, after it was accepted for publication it took another three or four months or so of editing and some re-writes. Then it was done. Ta da.

What are your plans for the future?

Lips are sealed, but I’m going to have a go at a more traditional mystery story next.

Anything else you would like to say?

It’s been so incredible to finally be published. Different to what I imagined, but incredible. I admit I thought it would be like winning tattslotto - this huge moment with fireworks and streamers and a brass band and the hand of God coming down from the clouds and all that. Like a marriage proposal, you know? And I would say, yes. But it was of course nothing like that. It’s been a lot of hard work and, look, if I’m being honest, it even started to feel a bit like homework.

But then finally, a couple of weekends ago, I had the tattslotto moment. I was delivering a poster for the book to a store here in Melbourne. It was the first store to stock them and I thought, I must ask them if they’ve got the books. But then I saw them. In the window. The first time I saw my book in a store and there were about 20 of them in a window display! I’m not too proud to admit that I wept like a baby. I had to go and sit in the car and have a Mintie and calm down for a bit.