I never thought I would get this invested in a novel about the inner dealings of the national Alpaca Breeders Organisation. It seems such a ludicrous society in which to set a political drama – punctuated as it is with images of those woolly, silly faces – but ultimately the small scale is the point. The backstabbing and often criminal manoeuvrings of the everyday people at the centre of Star Gazers is an illustration, in microcosm, of the ways in which people can go wrong.
There is no similarity in subject or tone or even character, but the book I am inescapably reminded of when reading Duncan Sarkies’ latest novel is Barry Crump’s Bastards I Have Met. Crump sketches these little illustrations of national bastardry, a catalogue of character, and Star Gazers does the same for corruption. Collected here, in different forms, are all the ways in which individuals can compromise themselves – and, by extension, the people or animals that they are supposed to represent.
There’s Shona Tisdall, the ultimate antagonist of the piece, who is a monstrously effective manipulator of those around her. Alyssa, her daughter, who is so desperate for approval that she’ll cheat at competitions in an attempt to earn praise. Caroline, who rigs elections in a desperate bid to curry favour. Lloyd, the chairman of the ABO, who might be an effective opposition if only he had a spine. Caleb, who believes he is the effective opposition because of his own spinelessness – it’s an advantage, he reasons, to be so unwilling to take a stand, as that way he runs no risk of alienating anybody. Journalists fail to do their jobs. Laboratory workers refuse to stand by their tests. Lawyers recognise corruption but fail to adequately share their conclusions. Farmers, rugby players, committee members, family members …
It’s a freakishly thorough portrait of individual and organisational corruption. If one excepts the alpacas themselves, the only truly upright individual here might be Willemijn the vet, whose suspicious nature and almost total lack of social skills make little headway against Shona’s plot to take over the ABO and poison herds of alpacas while she does it. (In fairness, Shona doesn’t actually mean to enact woolly massacres as a result of her hocking contaminated alpaca food to all and sundry. She just doesn’t care as long as it makes her money.)
The greatest strength of Star Gazers is how seriously it takes itself. As a reader, there’s a continual awareness that this is a book about infighting in an organisation dedicated to alpacas, of all things. It’s tempting to smile, to treat these small-scale, often domestic conflicts as simple satire. To think that it’s all pretty exaggerated. Entertainingly so, but still … slight.
That would, I think, be a mistake. There’s that essential seriousness, the tone that says “Yes, alpacas, but ...” All those bastards, combing through voting papers and wool. These people are deeply invested. They’re prepared to lie, to cheat, to endanger animals and livelihoods and relationships for a little bit of power in what is functionally a fairly obscure rural community.
And if we could fence off the Shonas and Lloyds and Carolines of the world, as their alpacas are ring-fenced in the aftermath of ill health and potential contagion, then maybe the humour inherent in the concept would outweigh the disturbance. The problem is that readers will not only know a Shona or a Lloyd or a Caroline themselves, but they will have seen the way their fundamental corruptions spread through wider communities.
These people are ordinary, they are everywhere and they are poison – the more so because they really believe, all of them, that they’re doing the right thing, not just for themselves but for everyone. “Everything I do is good. Everything I have done is good. I am bold. I am strong. I am smart. I am a winner,” Shona repeats to herself, justifying her behaviour, reinforcing her self-delusion. I want to smack her. I want someone to smack her, but they all – in their various corrupt forms – lack any sort of gumption. Never have I read a cast of characters so easily led. It’s infuriating.
It’s also, honestly, a little bit frightening. How easy it is to be so compromised. How easy it is not to recognise it. Oh sure, we can look often enough at events overseas and shake our heads, wonder at the gullibility of it, the eager readiness to be exploited. As if it doesn’t happen here, as if down in a small country at the bottom of the world (in an even smaller world of alpaca breeders) we are somehow immune.
We are not. I’ve met these bastards before. We all have. Books like this spit in their faces, and we need more of that.
Star Gazers, by Duncan Sarkies (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38), is out now.
