Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or Krusty the Clown?
Krusty the Clown, because he has the potential to capture the hearts and minds of the traditionally non-voting disaffected youth. Never mind his promise to lower the Federal minimum wage or his isolationist foreign policy – once he reprises Send in the Clowns on the campaign trail, it's in the bag.
What was your favourite outfit when you were 15?
A towelling playsuit, roller skates and flicky hair: Bananarama meets Lady Di - in Lower Hutt. (Not boot skates, though, because they're very pricey and you'll only grow out of them, Catherine, and these ones that you buckle over your shoes like Roman sandals are just as fashionable.)
When you are down in the dumps, what is the quickest way you can cheer yourself up?
I look at the photo of myself in the towelling playsuit and roller skates and thank the sweet baby Jesus there was no Facebook then.
What is your favourite German phrase or word?
Hard to choose but given the present circumstances, I'll go with Fernweh: the longing for far-off places or being homesick for a place you've never visited.
Best fake news story of 2020?
That New Zealanders panic-bought kilometres of toilet paper. Oh, wait …
Night out at the theatre or the flicks?
The theatre. I like to sit close to the stage – see the greasepaint ground into the pores, feel the spit landing in my hair. You know you're watching a one-off performance – it will never be delivered in quite the same way again – and there's always the electrifying possibility that something might go wrong.
What is your pet peeve?
The Facebook ads I keep getting for How to Look Hot on Zoom Even Though You're a Desiccated Middle-Aged Woman. Goddamnit, if Matthew McConaughey can wear a slobby old hoodie to Zoom with journalism students, I can wear my polar-fleece dressing gown to work meetings.
At what age have you felt most yourself?
At 31. I was living in Menton, writing in Katherine Mansfield's villa and I felt I had the permission to call myself a Real Writer.
What book have you read most often?
Wuthering Heights. Unless we're counting What Do You Call a Gorilla With a Banana in Each Ear?, which I have read every night at my daughter's request for the last, oh, seven months. Please make it stop. Nobody is laughing.
In what ways are you most and least representative of Gen X?
Most: I have taken an unconventional approach to having a family. (Google tells me this is a Gen X characteristic, so it must be true.) Least: apparently Gen Xers embrace work-life balance. I am basically working two full-time jobs – I'm up before dawn six days a week to write; I teach full-time at Waikato; I write in the evenings seven days a week … and then I go to bed and read for research.
Of the books you have written, which is your personal favourite?
The one I haven't written yet, because for a while longer it can still exist in my mind as a perfect, shimmering edifice.
Pretend you can't be a writer. You have to choose singer, actor, acrobat or sculptor. Which would it be?
In brazen contradiction of my answer to the bungy/plane conundrum: acrobat. In real life I am the unsportiest person I know and I've always wondered what it's like to live in a body with that kind of strength, grace and bendiness. The element of danger appeals, as do the look-like-you're-almost-nude (but-actually-it's-a-flesh-coloured-modesty-panel) costumes.
Your life implodes. What is your back-up plan?
Move to the south of France and buy and sell antique diamond jewellery, ferreting it out from crumbling members of the aristocracy with whom I will form lasting friendships. They'll call me La Chidgee and invite me to their chateaux to stuff me with profiteroles. -
Remote Sympathy, by Catherine Chidgey (VUP, $35) is out next week.
