Sonya Hartnett's suburbs

@ the State Library tonight, Sonya Hartnett gave the 2010 Redmond Barry lecture on the topic of Melbourne suburbs and writing.

the talk ranged across the houses she's lived in and what books she wrote there; a childhood in Box Hill, rentals in Kew, Hawthorn, an ugly brick first-homebuyers' unit in Northcote.

"But I write, often, of the suburbs, and it's the suburbs, that most maligned and mocked of environments, that have sheltered me, and taught me almost all of what the books needed to know about the ways of nature and people. Specifically, it is the eastern and northern suburbs that have been my roof and walls and floor as well as the launching-place of my imagination," she said. "Melbourne's my own personal city of literature."

She's more or less my age and has lived in many of the suburbs I've lived in, so there was a lot of resonance for me. Walking the Merri Creek in particular is exactly my territory (except that I ride it).

Some samples:

On West Preston: "Anyone who wanted to visit had to make an effort, almost pack a bag."

On Burke Road: it was like an unwanted but financially necessary flatmate "In the dead of night, its dull snoring presence was companionable."

On South Yarra: that it was too nice, that it confirmed for her that "rough around the edges suits me... I've favoured a down-at-heel-ness in every suburb I've lived in since."

On the streets of Balwyn: "Those streets appear over and over in my work." She said the suburbs of Melbourne gave her a kind freedom as a child: horses in paddocks, exploring the drains, riding along safe streets on a red bike.
She seemed to think that movement and new places were necessary to her, and to her writing; that each house (except one mistake) had a certain number of books "in it"

I liked a segment near the end, where she was musing on having moved around so much and said she'd dreamed she found the perfect house - but then forgot to write down the address and could never find it again...


(I think the talk will be up online somewhere soon; there were cameras; if I find it, I'll post a link to it. )