Margaret Mahy

by Tessa Duder

  The Haunting did, though, establish an often mentioned characteristic of the novels: that, in almost all her stories, the women appear to be stronger than men. They are either bringing up a family on their own and trying to juggle careers and looking after a home, like Margaret herself; or they have suffered and been made stronger by the experience; or they exchange roles with men. The girls, too, generally show more initiative than the boys. This is not because Mahy thinks men are weak but because she has been surrounded by strong women: ‘I’ve lived in a family where there have been a lot of women, most of them fairly resilient and fairly tough. They’ve had their troubles, but they’ve come through without becoming alcoholic or having nervous breakdowns, or becoming nasty about the world, or bitter.’

  She knew she was ‘almost possessed’ while writing The Haunting. ‘Suddenly everything that happened to me, everything that anyone said, seemed to connect up with the story. Other writers have had this experience too: you have an idea for a novel and suddenly there are all these strange signs of it in the outside world: “Look, there it is again.”… I’d finished writing the novel and suddenly realised that I’d written all about myself in it without ever once realising it. Now that’s scary.’

  Even more disconcerting was the realisation that the young girl, Tabitha, in whom she recognised herself, was, in the words of Listener writer Pamela Stirling, ‘not the sort of person whom the book necessarily suggests that one should feel very sympathetic towards. Tabitha, in fact, is a real pain. The problem is that Tabitha, whom Mahy describes in The Haunting as “having the important, excited look of a person swollen out with secrets”, is such an extremely talkative child. Tabitha talks. And talks. Despite being with “stuck with ordinariness”, Tabitha is determined to be a world-famous writer, and she never stops reminding people of it. Much of her prattling is quite entertaining … It’s just that Tabitha never shuts up.’ As Stirling reported, ‘Mahy was quite honest about the problem of “unbridled ego” in a child. Like Tabitha, she would often, as a child, find a way of “showing off” the fact that she was writing a story. “I can remember carrying my notebooks around in an effort to introduce them into the conversation.” When she was five, her idea of striking up a mature conversation with an adult was to say something like, “And would you happen to know if there are any woodpeckers in this district?” When one of her uncles once threatened to cut out her tongue, she wept bitterly: “Not because I thought he’d do it, but because he obviously wasn’t enjoying my conversation.”’

  In what seems at first deceptively like a short family fantasy novel, The Haunting demonstrates the key aspects of Margaret’s long fiction: the family setting supercharged with fantastical or supernatural elements, and the genius for twisting and twisting and again twisting a story until something extraordinary emerges. Barney is thought to be the one grappling with inheriting the absent uncle’s powers, but no, it is his older sister, the brooding Troy; furthermore, in the penultimate chapter, the most malevolent power in the family is discovered to reside in the austere old great-grandmother, one of the most memorable of Margaret’s many old crones.

  The Haunting was launched by Dent’s in Britain in 1982, and published in the States by Atheneum in New York. Critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, and in Australia and New Zealand, was immediate, consistent — and surprised. In Britain, the influential Junior Bookshelf critic wrote: ‘We know Miss Mahy best as a distinguished writer of texts for picture books. It has always been clear that this is one of the most taxing of all literary exercises. It comes nevertheless as a surprise to discover what a commanding writer of the full-length novel she is. The Haunting is masterly in its conception and above all in the way it uses words to overcome scepticism and to give a vivid actuality to a fantastic theme.

  ‘The theme, and the mechanics of its magic, are handled with the mastery of a virtuoso performer. But the strength of the book lies in the way Miss Mahy relates the fantasy to the relationships of ordinary life. The Scholars and the Palmers may be unusual but they are real people, and it matters greatly to the reader that the harmony of their lives should not be destroyed. Even Great-Granny Scholar, “a terrible old lady, a small, thin witch, frail but furious”, is not only convincing but sympathetic. These positive factors would in themselves make this a most memorable book. What lifts it into an altogether higher class is the way Miss Mahy tells her story, using words as if they came fresh from the mint. Here’s Tabitha, on the subject of Great-Granny Scholar: “I don’t mind her being wrinkled. It’s just that all her wrinkles are so angry. She’s like a wall with furious swear words scribbled all over it.”’

  For the American School Library Journal, Michael Cart, from the Beverly Hills Public Library, commented: ‘Here is an absolutely first-rate contemporary novel of the supernatural … The principal characters — Barney and the members of his family — are beautifully drawn, and perhaps because they care so much for each other, readers care for them too. Their growth and development as individuals and as members of a family unit are as important to the story as its supernatural chills, thrills and puzzlements, a fact that lends this genre book unusual richness.’

  In New Zealand, children’s book authority Tom Fitzgibbon described The Haunting as ‘a plea for the liberating power of the imagination with all its richness and poetry against those like the Great Granny who repress life into a series of rigid lines’, while the Australian commentator Agnes Nieuwenhuizen thought it ‘a dazzling piece of writing … crammed with extraordinary images and similes which infuse ordinary events and small domestic details in the lives of children with fresh and deep significances. Mahy’s characterisations and portrayals of the nuances, fears and strength of family life are superb.’

  Consistent with Margaret’s previous work and the story’s folk tale associations, The Haunting is set in some unspecified Western country. She told one audience:

  ‘Many people comment on the lack of setting for The Haunting. Readers in Australia began thinking it was set in the USA. Some people have thought that it was set in England. There is a family living a reasonably realistic day to day life. They garden, wash dishes, go to school, feel concerned for one another and all in a sort of void. There is reference to a city and to hills, but there is no statement of place … [It is] the landscape of the imagination, with little idiom or local reference … The fairy tale, however, is universal. The family story, even when it calls on folk tale sources, is somehow unique.’

  A later assessment, by Stephanie Nettell in the new edition of The Haunting as a Puffin Classic, told a new generation of young readers that a ‘straight ghost story was not nearly enough for Margaret Mahy. She also wanted to give you a glittering fantasy about enchanters, and a family saga, about the misery inflicted on one generation by an angrily unhappy mother and reawakening of another by a loving young stepmother. And then she gives us still one more story, about the secret anxieties of a small boy … her glimpses of magic are thrilling, full of mystery and beauty … By the end of the book you realise there are, in truth, no evil villains, only confused, despairing people. The construction of The Haunting is flawless … its action takes place within a few days in the life of one family, and encapsulates her philosophy as neatly as any of her more complex books for older readers.’

  The Haunting also marked a new and important phase in Margaret’s relationship with her British editor, Vanessa Hamilton. South-African born, slight in stature but of energetic personality, Vanessa combined editorial skill with a boundless enthusiasm for Margaret’s writing, sustained over three decades, and continuing after Vanessa left Dent around 1988 to become a literary agent and freelance editor right up to her death in January 2002.

  Few authors enjoy such long-standing consistency and commitment, leading to confidence, trust and deep friendship. For every book, as in-house and later freelance editor, Vanessa edited the text, chose and guided illustrators and designers; Margaret often did not see the illustrations until the last proof
stage or even until the completed book, but trusted Vanessa’s judgement. As her agent, Vanessa attended to contracts for new books, for translations (any one book might have as many as 15 translations) and for reprints, when the rights reverted, as they normally did after a period of time, to the author. Managing the fast-growing Mahy backlist was in itself a huge, never-ending task. There were frequent long-distance phone calls between London and Governors Bay, and lengthy faxes, then emails.

  Vanessa was usually the first person to see any Mahy manuscript, although Margaret would often have read it first to her daughters, especially Bridget, and valued their comments. Margaret never viewed editors as potential adversaries determined to prevail in any dispute and put their stamp on the manuscript, though in 1992, as her output became ever more international, she was to write of the difficulties of working with three different editors: her agent, the publisher’s editor and then the American editors who could be ‘diabolical’, wanting to change vocabulary unfamiliar to American children. ‘[A] bit prudish, unexpectedly moral’, they did not like references to sex, alcohol and violence — although, with typical pragmatism, she conceded that book sales were the crucial factor and editors were not ‘quite as wishy-washy as I make them sound’.

  Margaret has been generous, respectful and professional towards the many editors she has worked with. ‘Good editors can take the place of passing time, can read with fresh judgement and be of great help, particularly towards the end of the process, which is usually when they come in. I hope for an editor who has better mechanical skills than I have, more business contacts and acumen. And whose judgement, while it may more or less parallel my own, will be more incisive and constructive at the final stage of the story. Much editorial comment on my stories is concerned with the fact that I tend to make things too long. The editor also picks out incoherencies of various kinds, both verbal and in terms of the action of the plot. I suppose one is always upset at some level by criticism, but it is essential, and at times, can even be welcome because the editor has seen a way to improve things which you, as author, have been unable to see.’

  There was no respite in Governors Bay when reviews for The Haunting started to arrive. The second short-story-turned-novel, becoming a longer and more complex narrative than anticipated, was well under way; there were always smaller stories being worked at simultaneously as ideas struck; and even more invitations to conferences which required the researching and writing of major speeches. Margaret never took these appearances lightly, or trundled out earlier talks. Some, such as the long, scholarly, lengthy assessment of ‘attitudes to children in early Australian and New Zealand children’s books’, delivered to a librarians’ conference in 1981, drew on her library experience. Others, such as the challenging discussion of the relative ‘truths’ of fiction and non-fiction and the dichotomy between art and science, presented to a gathering of teachers in 1982, offered the opportunity for an intellectual workout.

  The overwhelmingly positive reaction to her first serious novel must have been gratifying, but no one was prepared for what happened next: a phone call from London, early in 1983, advising that The Haunting had been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, given annually by the British Library Association for the best children’s book published in Britain in 1982. Then Margaret heard that she had won the Carnegie: would she please arrange a flight to London.

  In the history of New Zealand literature, there are few comparable achievements, most notably Keri Hulme winning the 1985 Booker Prize for the bone people. The Carnegie is the Olympic medal for children’s writing, the ultimate seal of approval from the English-speaking world’s strongest literary tradition.

  Bursting with delight but sworn to absolute secrecy, even from her family, Margaret hit upon a practicable solution only she would have come up with. Aunt Francie, now housed in a small cottage next door bought by her niece, was suffering from Alzheimer’s and remembered nothing she was told. ‘Aunty, I’ve won the Carnegie Medal!’ ‘How splendid,’ her 84-year-old aunt answered, blissfully unaware that Margaret was about to join a pantheon of children’s writers that began with Arthur Ransome in 1936 and included Noel Streatfeild, Eric Linklater, Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Goudge, Eleanor Farjeon, Rosemary Sutcliff, Philippa Pearce, Penelope Lively, C.S. Lewis, Alan Garner, K.M. Peyton, Anne Fine, Berlie Doherty, Jan Mark, Gillian Cross, Robert Swindells, David Almond, Aidan Chambers, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman — and the only other writer from outside Britain or America, the Australian novelist Ivan Southall, who won the Carnegie for Josh in 1971.

  Margaret’s new award-winning stature cranked up the demand for appearances, both around New Zealand and internationally. Shortly after travelling to Britain to receive her Carnegie Medal, she paid her first visit to Auckland schools, to entertain more than 1500 children in West Auckland classrooms over a period of three days, with adult gatherings at night. To the organisers of that author tour (and to many since), her immediate appeal to children and performing skills surpassed expectations, and there was ‘apparently no limit to her affability and stamina’. The Carnegie Medal was celebrated with ‘extreme delight and excitement’, particularly by her elderly mother who had made the long trip up from Whakatane specially to hear her famous eldest daughter speak for the first time.

  Only two years later, Margaret won a second Carnegie Medal for her second novel, The Changeover: a supernatural romance, still regarded by many as her finest piece of fiction. Only four other authors, Jan Mark, Peter Dickinson, Berlie Doherty and Anne Fine, have ever won the award twice, and Margaret Mahy is the only one of the four from outside Britain.

  The Changeover was her first work for the slightly older age group known as young adults (YA). Vanessa Hamilton had been jubilant when she received the manuscript, writing to say that there was almost nothing she wanted changed. As Margaret has noted, the young adult genre entails special considerations: ‘It is to do with the difference between writing books for adults and writing even for young adults. Elements of melodrama (though I must admit I quite like them in adult books) are quite desirable in books for young adults. Partly it’s because it’s often a more florid and melodramatic and less ironic time of life. People are looking very anxiously for something that’s going to make them marvellous. Whereas, as you get older, you make more use of irony.’

  Told of the news of her second Carnegie win, Margaret was ‘absolutely swept away. The Haunting had come right out of the blue. With The Changeover I knew it was a possibility, but when I heard that it had won, it was with a different sort of astonishment. I didn’t think it would win, not twice to the same person quite like that.’

  She was unable to attend the second Carnegie ceremony so her acceptance speech, vintage Mahy, was read by Vanessa Hamilton.

  ‘The pleasures of being awarded the Carnegie Medal are unlimited. My delight in winning it in 1983 was so great, and I spoke about it with such fervour when given the opportunity, that, though I was equally overwhelmed by winning it a second time, I find I have already said all the easiest things. It does not seem enough to reiterate that I was surprised and delighted (both true reactions) particularly as it was a different surprise and a different delight, the first occasion reaching out of the past to alter the second …

  ‘Accepting the medal for The Haunting, I told a story about my aunt who lives with me. Having lost her memory to a great extent her comments, now detached from the world of reality, have the enigmatic quality of oracular utterance. When the news that The Changeover had won the medal was announced in New Zealand it was featured on the national evening news. A reporter came with a cameraman and interviewed me in my house. More material than is going to be used is always recorded, and, since I felt I had answered some of the questions well and others not so well, I was actively interested in finding out just which answers it had been decided to make public. Not only that, I was uneasy about how I was going to look. Sometimes when I appear on television in New Zealand, a make-up woman at the studio improves
me enormously, making me look smoother and more or less the same colour all over. But on my home ground I felt the truth would show, and, exposed on television, who could possibly want that? After all, television ought to leave the truth alone and concentrate on illusion which it does very well.

  ‘In the evening, reinforced by my daughter and my aunt, I sat poised in front of the television, listening impatiently to trivial accounts of famine, terrorism and economic recession, waiting for the real news to be announced. “Margaret Mahy does it again,” said the announcer. I was about to find out just what it was I had said earlier in the day. However, at the sound of my name my aunt sat up quite sharply and an expression of great pleasure crossed her face. “Margaret Mahy!” she cried, “I used to know her. Well, I’m interested to have heard that, and the next time I’m in Whakatane I’ll tell her mother I saw this. My father used to write you know, and he was a great help to us with our school work …” And so on and so on through a fine, old family anecdote. I never ever heard what I actually said on television. I wasn’t meant to know. The oracle had spoken, and all I could do was listen to my aunt and watch my own face, every bit as faulty as I had suspected it would be. How old I look! I thought, so you see the moment turned out to be far richer and more mysterious than I could have imagined.