Wednesday, October 10, 2007


REMEMBER ME

“Sometimes the best intentions can bring you undone. To this day I’m convinced that I did nothing wrong, yet I still managed to bring the world tumbling down around my head and the heads of those nearest and dearest to me.”

An essay innocently written by a 12-year-old boy is the catalyst for a shocking chain of events that rips a community apart forever.

Set in 1956 in Auckland, this is a story from best-selling author Derek Hansen inspired by his own boyhood, pieced together through a young hero’s essays that captivated and amused his school mates. Hansen vividly paints a portrait of a boy’s life in the fifties that tells a poignant and bitter sweet story.

The boy and his family migrated to what they thought was the land of hope and freedom, the peaceful, idyllic country of New Zealand. All was not as it seemed, though, as Hansen’s writing cleverly captures the essence of a post-war community that is strong but not unbreakable.

Hansen’s inspiration behind Remember Me.

“I have written four novels with the word “lunch” in the title, but this is the first time a lunch has actually inspired a novel. Three years ago I attended a mini-reunion with old classmates from Richmond Road School. The lunch was organised by the current Governor General – then ombudsman – who along with others had the wit to bring old school photos. Having left New Zealand forty years earlier (for a two-year working holiday in London) the experience was overwhelming.

I’d consigned my past to the furthermost reaches of my memory, rather like stuffing old photos into a shoebox and then forgetting where I’d stored it. Everything changed over the course of that lunch. Long neglected memories resurfaced, slowly at first and then in a tumult, so sharp and clear it was as though the shoebox had been hermetically sealed to preserve the contents. There was my childhood spread before me like a feast upon a table, every dish tempting and offering possibilities. There was enough material for several novels but the story that emerged was by far the most insistent, demanding to be told.”
(Derek - I LOVE your cover! Well done to whomever created it. Perfect.)

Derek Hansen was born in England, raised in New Zealand and now lives in Australia.
He began writing novels at the conclusion of a long and successful career in advertising.
I remember his first novel as if it were yesterday, brilliant, Lunch with the Generals, it was an immediate bestseller and I can recall the storyline to this day even though I have read mnay hundreds of novels since - I think it was first published in the early 90's (?).
Anyway its success provided all the encouragement he needed to continue so that today Derek is the author of eight novels and three collections of short stories.
He is married with two grown-up children, and currently divides his time between his homes in Sydney and the Sunshine Coast, with as many diversions to New Zealand, Central America, North America, Europe, Asia and the UK as time and budget allow.

See: http://www.derekhansen.net/

Derek will be touring extensively throughout the North Island as below:
26-27 November: Auckland
28 Nov Thames, Tauranga,
29 November: Te Puke, Gisborne
30 Nov: Napier, Waipukurau, Masterton
1 December: Wellington

Release Date: 16 November 07 $34.99

For further information, please contact:
Lise Taylor
Senior Publicist at HarperCollins Publishers
TEL 09 443-9246 MOB 0275 855 543

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