On the last
day of NZ Book Month Jenny Pattrick will launch a self-guided walking trail on
the South Island’s West Coast that links in with key events and locations from
her novels The Denniston
Rose and Heart
of Coal.
Readers and trail walkers will
learn about the local landscape and its history through the lens of the
Denniston novels, opening up what you might expect from an experience that
roves on and off the page. And for those of you who wish to keep things as interactive
as possible, there is also an iApp for the tour, potentially a New Zealand
first for this kind of literary venture.
Pattrick became very familiar
with the historical coal mining area of Denniston when she was researching and
writing the novels, which are set in the 1880s. ‘I visited the area many
times,’ she says. ‘An old retired coal-miner, Geoff Kitchin, walked with me
explaining how the coal was mined and where different families – including his
own – lived. He brought the ghost towns to life. The Coal Town Museum in
Westport was a great source of information too.’
Coal is an integral part of the
fabric of historical Denniston, and Pattrick says connecting the novels to
geographical sites was aided by her earlier research. ‘It was an easy process
for me,’ she says, ‘because there are so many good old photographs of Denniston
and old maps. I had placed my characters in real areas and had always imagined
them living in precise places.’
Pattrick (right) deftly brings the
bustling and boisterous settlement of Denniston to life, evident when the
heroine of the novels, Rose, describes her surroundings:
‘I like living on the Hill
because some people here are kind to me and I have my friends Michael and
Brennan and I can go to school. Denniston is cold and dirty and around the Bins
everything is rattling and crashing; the men have black faces and they joke
even when they work so hard. Coal is everywhere inside and outside the houses.
The white washing on the line turns black. When the wagons are racing down the
Incline you have to watch out not to get run over and killed. Brennan’s big
brothers all work in the mines – even the twins who are eleven – and his Dad and uncles too. Except
the one who got killed by coal falling on him.’
Read the full article and view the launch details here on
Open Book, the Book Council blog.
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