I am thrilled to be hosting
a spot on the ATTRACTION by Ruby Porter Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the
giveaway!
ATTRACTION
by Ruby Porter
May 7th 2019
Text Publishing
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 280
The present reckons with the past in Attraction, Ruby Porter’s debut novel.
Three women are on a road trip,
navigating the motorways of the North Island, their relationships with one
another and New Zealand's colonial history. Our narrator doesn't know where she
stands with Ilana, her not-quite-girlfriend. She has a complex history with her
best friend, Ashi. She's haunted by the spectre of her emotionally abusive
ex-boyfriend. And her period's now weeks late.
Attraction is a meditative novel of
connection, inheritance and the stories we tell ourselves. In lyrical
fragments, Porter explores what it means to be and to belong, to create and to
destroy.
‘Attraction peels back the
landscape to reveal deeper truths. The writer is right inside her material – a
road trip that delivers a political and sexual coming-of-age narrative. The
book is a slow-burning fuse that brims with intensely felt experience. Porter is
an exciting new talent.’―Lloyd Jones
‘Attraction abounds with
sharp imagery, intergenerational relationships and the natural, historic and
domestic environments of modern New Zealand. Ruby Porter is a gifted new
writer.’―Patricia Grace
‘Attraction is an exquisite
story…The prose is emotive and artistic…Attraction is impossible to
put down…It is a brilliant, beautiful novel.’―Booksellers NZ
‘A coming-of-age story that is full of
evocative sketches of the North Island’s landscapes.’―Traveller magazine
‘Tackling a complex, fraught topic –
the very essence of what it is to be a New Zealander – with courage, style and
insight.―Stuff New Zealand
‘Not a word is wasted. Imagery is of
the sharpest level. There is so much to love about this angry, meditative novel
that reading it is almost an act of catharsis.'―The AU Review
'Porter's style is spare, immediate and
pared back...[A]n intriguing new voice.'―Overland Literary Journal
EXCERPT
Levin is a place with too much sky. It is a bulging blue belly that presses down on you, holding you to the spot. Maybe that’s why no one ever gets out. This is a town where people come to die. The retirement villages have names like Somerset and promises like Your Ticket to Freedom at an Affordable Price. The cry of ambulances sounds all through the night. It has a Salvation Army store and a SaveMart, a Paper Plus and a Postie Plus, a rebranded Hoyts cinema that plays movies two weeks after they finish their run in Auckland. It has boy racers and a whole lot of meth. It doesn’t have much else.
+
Helen says Grandad Wayne became an artist when he moved here. The basement, separated from the garage by a door, from the hallway by a staircase, was his. No one else could enter. He was working on something down there, or at least he would say, —I’ve got work to do, before descending into concrete, each night after dinner. He wouldn’t say anything else.
When he died, all they found was junk. He’d been to a lot of auctions, always looking for a bargain, looking to rescue some perfectly usable piece of gardening equipment or kitchenware or roll of carpet or three-legged table.
—It just needs a length of wood nailed in, he’d say. Or, it just needs a lick of paint. Or, it just needs an engine replacement.
—Probably destroyed it all, Helen said, meaning the art. —It’s probably where you get it from, your painting.
I thought that was hopeful. But how would I know? I was too young to remember any of it. Grandad died when I was four, only three weeks after Stuart.
+
We pull up to number thirty-one. Francine helps us unlock, unload. Bo jumps from the back and runs straight into the garden.
—He’s a good dog, she says, —just underworked. Ask Mike from next door to tow your car to the mechanics, he’ll help you out. Whatever you do, don’t use Grandma’s guy.
—You’re not staying? I say.
It’s one of those granite questions. It looks light until you try to pick it up.
—No, she says. —No, I’m going to keep making my day trips, once a fortnight. Like I always have.
She touches the place where her cross is, beneath her shirt.
—Last time I came, she says, —Mum didn’t recognise me. She thought she was talking to Helen. I had to keep reminding her, showing her the photo of me on the bedside table.
When someone can recognise your photo but not your face.
The Tinder match who stares in the supermarket, trying to place you over the agria potatoes and Chinese garlic. The person you added on Facebook, years ago, after meeting one time at a party. Your own mother.
She picks at a skin of paint, scaling on the garage door. —Of course I want to be there for her. But why make it so uneven? Why is it that we’re more there for people in death than in life? I don’t want to be. I want my memories to be balanced.
The sensor light catches in her eyes.
—But I pray for her, I pray for her every minute of every day.
Levin is a place with too much sky. It is a bulging blue belly that presses down on you, holding you to the spot. Maybe that’s why no one ever gets out. This is a town where people come to die. The retirement villages have names like Somerset and promises like Your Ticket to Freedom at an Affordable Price. The cry of ambulances sounds all through the night. It has a Salvation Army store and a SaveMart, a Paper Plus and a Postie Plus, a rebranded Hoyts cinema that plays movies two weeks after they finish their run in Auckland. It has boy racers and a whole lot of meth. It doesn’t have much else.
+
Helen says Grandad Wayne became an artist when he moved here. The basement, separated from the garage by a door, from the hallway by a staircase, was his. No one else could enter. He was working on something down there, or at least he would say, —I’ve got work to do, before descending into concrete, each night after dinner. He wouldn’t say anything else.
When he died, all they found was junk. He’d been to a lot of auctions, always looking for a bargain, looking to rescue some perfectly usable piece of gardening equipment or kitchenware or roll of carpet or three-legged table.
—It just needs a length of wood nailed in, he’d say. Or, it just needs a lick of paint. Or, it just needs an engine replacement.
—Probably destroyed it all, Helen said, meaning the art. —It’s probably where you get it from, your painting.
I thought that was hopeful. But how would I know? I was too young to remember any of it. Grandad died when I was four, only three weeks after Stuart.
+
We pull up to number thirty-one. Francine helps us unlock, unload. Bo jumps from the back and runs straight into the garden.
—He’s a good dog, she says, —just underworked. Ask Mike from next door to tow your car to the mechanics, he’ll help you out. Whatever you do, don’t use Grandma’s guy.
—You’re not staying? I say.
It’s one of those granite questions. It looks light until you try to pick it up.
—No, she says. —No, I’m going to keep making my day trips, once a fortnight. Like I always have.
She touches the place where her cross is, beneath her shirt.
—Last time I came, she says, —Mum didn’t recognise me. She thought she was talking to Helen. I had to keep reminding her, showing her the photo of me on the bedside table.
When someone can recognise your photo but not your face.
The Tinder match who stares in the supermarket, trying to place you over the agria potatoes and Chinese garlic. The person you added on Facebook, years ago, after meeting one time at a party. Your own mother.
She picks at a skin of paint, scaling on the garage door. —Of course I want to be there for her. But why make it so uneven? Why is it that we’re more there for people in death than in life? I don’t want to be. I want my memories to be balanced.
The sensor light catches in her eyes.
—But I pray for her, I pray for her every minute of every day.
Author Info
Ruby Porter is a tutor of creative writing at the University of Auckland. She has been published in Geometry Journal, Aotearotica, Spinoff and Wireless, and a selection of her poetry is available on NZEPC. In 2018, she also won the Wallace Foundation Short Fiction Contest.
Giveaway
Details:
1
winner will receive a $10 Amazon GC courtesy of Rockstar Book Tours, International.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
4/6/2020
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Excerpt
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4/6/2020
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Guest Post
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4/7/2020
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Guest Post
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4/8/2020
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Guest Post
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4/8/2020
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Guest Post
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4/9/2020
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Guest Post
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4/9/2020
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Excerpt
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4/10/2020
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Review
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4/10/2020
|
Excerpt
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Week Two:
4/13/2020
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Excerpt
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4/14/2020
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Excerpt
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4/14/2020
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Review
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4/15/2020
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Review
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4/16/2020
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Review
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4/16/2020
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Excerpt
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4/17/2020
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Review
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4/17/2020
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Review
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