Q&A: Brannavan Gnanalingam
A new novel from Brannavan Gnanalingam, author of local knock-out Sprigs, is cause for celebration. In honour of the release of Slow Down, You're Here, Brannavan answers our quick Q&A.
1. How are you and what have you been up to lately?
I'm okay. I'm currently dealing with concussion again, after receiving an accidental Liverpool kiss from my toddler. So brain fog aside, I'm just chugging along with parenting, work, and writing.
2. If you were working in a bookshop, how would you hand-sell your book to customers? What would you say to convince them to buy and read it?
I used to work at a suburban Paper Plus, and once convinced a pensioner to buy De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom and watch the Pasolini film. I'd find my own books harder to sell. How about: it's a very contemporary horror novel (set in January 2022), that speaks to the here and now. It's also funny, I think, and nihilistic, and a good-time read. Except it's probably not a good-time read, so I'll choose my words carefully IRL to avoid complaints from angry misled customers.
3. What books (or other art/media) influenced you while writing this book, or generally in your life?
I'd be here for decades if I went through everything that influenced me in my life. But this book started off as a film script idea when I was 21. So the films that influenced this one in particular are Eric Rohmer's Morality Tales (like A LOT), Hitchcock's Psycho, and the films of Ulrich Seidl. In terms of books, I read a bunch of horror / thriller books – and the ones that particularly influenced are Stephen King's Misery, Kenneth Cook's Wake in Fright, Junji Ito's Uzumaki, Roland Topor's The Tenant, and Charity Norman's The Secrets of Strangers. Lucy Mackintosh's Shifting Grounds was particularly helpful too. I stole the way Murdoch Stephens’ Rat King Landlord used short chapters to build pace. I was also heavily influenced by the way Elena Ferrante is able to draw in considerations of politics/class into genre. I aim to write psychological realism, I guess, so I'm a sucker for the way Ferrante writes.
4. What good books have you read lately?
Heaps from this year alone! Some recent fiction from Aotearoa has been fabulous – Rebecca K Reilly's Greta & Valdin, Whiti Hereaka's Kurangaituku, and Samuel Te Kani's Please, Call Me Jesus. I was fortunate to read an advance copy of Towards a Grammar of Race, edited by Lana Lopesi, Arcia Tecun and Anisha Sankar (to be released by BWB), and it's much needed. I read Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time, further solidifying her position as one of my favourite writers. I've also caught up with some contemporary classics, like Hervé Guibert's To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, Bessie Head's Maru, Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, and Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game. I'm looking forward to reading and doing no writing for a bit, once this book is released.
Buy Slow Down, You’re Here (Lawrence & Gibson), $25
