Maryrose writes fiction and non-fiction. The Cane is her first novel. In 2019, her book Wedderburn: A True Tale of Blood and Dust (Allen & Unwin, 2018), was longlisted for Best Debut and Best True Crime in the 2019 Davitt Awards. In 2016, she was awarded the New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing (non-fiction) for her essay on the 1972 abduction and murder of Marilyn Wallman. She is the author of Original Skin: Exploring the Marvels of the Human Hide (Scribe 2010) and The End of Charity: Time for Social Enterprise (Allen & Unwin 2008) co-written with Nic Frances, and winner of the Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues.
Today, Maryrose Cuskelly is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about The Cane. Read on …
Maryrose Cuskelly
Please tell us about your book, The Cane!
MC: The Cane is set in the early 1970s in Quala, a sugar growing community in north Queensland, which is still reeling four weeks after the disappearance of a teenage girl. The 1970s were years of great social and cultural change and this upheaval plays into the dread and suspicion swirling about Quala, the neighbouring farms and in Kaliope, the big town 20 miles away.
Where did you get the first spark of inspiration for this story?
MC: I grew up in Queensland. When I was a child, there were several high-profile cases of children and young women murdered or going missing in the state. A number of these crimes remain unsolved to this day. Even though they occurred hundreds of kilometres away from where I lived, these disappeared and murdered children have continued to haunt me.
Barbara McClymont is one of your main characters, whose missing teenage daughter is the mystery at the heart of the novel. What can you tell us about Barbara and what was your favourite thing about writing her story?
MC: In the first version of the manuscript, Barbara had a much smaller presence. I was wary of forcing the reader to be a voyeur of her grief; however, my editor convinced me that she needed to be a larger character within the novel. I think she was right.
Barbara, when the novel opens, is a talented artist with a growing reputation. She was one of those young women who married in the 1950s with a very traditional view of marriage and her place in society. Over the course of the sixties, she became more politically aware and interested in women’s liberation. As her children grew older, she found herself with more spare time. I imagine Barbara attended neighbourhood art classes and, perhaps encouraged by a mentor who recognised her potential, went on to study at art college.
Barbara’s come to Quala with her family because of a job opportunity for her husband Ted. They have an understanding that they will return to Brisbane when their daughter Janet goes to university.
When Janet disappears, Barbara is certain her daughter is dead, while Ted clings to the hope that she will be found alive.
It was important to me—and perhaps this was my favourite thing about writing her story—that while Barbara has been driven to her wits’ end with grief and despair, she retains a kind of dignity and, ultimately, strength.
The Cane is set in Quala, a North Queensland sugar town, in the 1970s. As a crime writer, what appeals to you about this kind of setting?
MC: There was a long going on the 1970s. The Vietnam War moratorium movement was in full swing; anti-apartheid protesters were demonstrating against the Springbok rugby tour; Germaine Greer had just published The Female Eunuch; and Gough Whitlam’s progressive Labor government was about to be elected. Meanwhile, Queensland remained under the rule of the conservative, autocratic Premier Joh Bjelke Pettersen. Joh encouraged Queenslanders to think of themselves as a breed apart. He was constantly threatening that the state would secede. North Queensland, particularly, felt a little like a maverick state, a Badlands. In addition, the climate and the landscape, lend themselves to the Gothic: the heat and humidity, the claustrophobia of the cane fields, and the isolation and distance from any major urban centre. All these elements make it a great setting for a crime story.
‘I considered myself a non-fiction writer, but fiction proved to the best way to explore some of the issues and themes that I’d been thinking about for a long time, and that’s how The Cane came to be.’
What was the most challenging thing about writing this novel?
MC: There are a few elements to the novel that I was trying to juggle: a couple of narrative voices, several different perspectives and then the sense of a lurking malevolent presence in the cane. There were a few times when I wasn’t sure that I could pull it off.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?
MC: I came to writing relatively late. My original plan was to be an actor and I beavered away at that vocation for a while with little success. When I decided to give it up, I really mourned the idea of myself as a creative person. Eventually, I found my way to RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing course where I initially focussed on the editing subjects, but I found myself drawn more and more to writing. A project I began there became my book Original Skin: exploring the marvels of the human hide. I worked freelance and in-house as an editor and writer for quite a few years before publishing Wedderburn: A true tale of blood and dust. I considered myself a non-fiction writer, but fiction proved to the best way to explore some of the issues and themes that I’d been thinking about for a long time, and that’s how The Cane came to be.
What do you love about writing crime fiction?
MC: That’s a tricky question! This is my first full-length work of fiction. When I first submitted the manuscript, I deliberately avoided referring to it as a crime novel. I described it as a coming-of-age story with a gothic feel. My editor and my publisher had other ideas. Through the editing process and my revisions of the novel it became a more conventional crime story. So, maybe the answer is seeing The Cane’s epic cover for the first time and realising, oh, okay, that’s what I’ve written.
What is the last book you read and loved?
MC: I absolutely ate up the most recent volume of Helen Garner’s notebooks: How to End a Story. I love her novels as well as her non-fiction and admire her enormously as a writer—so crisp, so clean.
What do you hope readers will discover in The Cane?
MC: Depictions of community, an era and characters that all feel authentic.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
MC: I’m currently tens of thousands of words into another novel, this time with a contemporary urban setting. I don’t think it’s a crime novel, but I could be proven wrong!
Thanks Maryrose!
—The Cane by Maryrose Cuskelly (Allen & Unwin) is out now. Limited signed copies are available while stocks last!
The Cane
Limited Signed Copies Available!
Quala, a North Queensland sugar town, the 1970s. Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway and the cane must be burned.
Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape, and history keeps returning to remind Quala that the past is always present...
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