Patricia Donovan is the author of three previous novels, including The Remarkable Miss Digby which in 2022 was shortlisted for a NZ Booklovers Award. Rita Vegas continues her notable exploration of genre. Donovan says that while her novels span numerous genres, they do share a common theme: a woman’s journey and her quest, in the face of obstacles, to find her strengths and make her way in the world. Patricia talks to NZ Booklovers.
Tell us a little about Rita Vegas.
Rita Vegas is a crime story. My eponymous heroine, and the story’s narrator, is volunteering at a rehab centre in Cambodia. The discovery of a dead body there adds to an already tense atmosphere, and triggers in Rita painful memories of events five years earlier, in New Zealand. A woman had been found dead at Rita’s workplace, and compromising material related to the death found in Rita’s bag. Who put it there? Why? Finding herself under a cloud, Rita embarks on a dangerous chase to find the answers.
What inspired you to write this novel?
In a past life and in another country, I worked as a communications consultant. A long and rewarding association with one of my clients came to an end when he asked me to purchase airline tickets for him and his wife, and to recoup the cost by inflating a few of my subsequent invoices to the government department in which he worked. This was one of those unexpected incidents that stay with you although I had no inkling at the time that it would one day provide the seed for a novel.
What research was involved?
Using my Roget’s Thesaurus to find as many synonyms as I could for jerk, thug and dickhead. I also had to learn a bit about boxing, and anti-depressants, and how many keys there are on a church organ.
What was your routine or process when writing this book?
I wrote the first two or three pages without thinking too much about them, and then, once my characters started interacting with one another, got caught up in the story and ready to commit to five hours a day at my desk, four days a week.
If a soundtrack was made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.
Horizons by Ane Brun
Unstoppable by Sia
Maybe finish with one of Chopin’s Preludes
If your book was made into a movie, who would you like to see playing the lead characters?
I’m happy to leave this to the casting director.
What is it like writing in so many different genres? Do you have a favourite?
I’ve relished exploring different genres although I never set out to do so, and I don’t have a favourite. It has never occurred to me to write in this or that genre; an idea comes to me and I follow it. The genre, for me, is dictated by that idea, or situation – a moral or emotional dilemma say – and from there I conjure up my heroine and put her to work dealing with that situation.
What did you enjoy the most about writing this novel?
Putting Rita in a hole and watching her dig her way out it. And, as with my earlier novels, I enjoyed living vicariously through the lives of my characters, and using them to explore the human experience. In Rita Vegas, I’ve woven together two stressful events, five years apart, to explore memory and the stickiness of emotional triggers, and how necessity drives us to find strengths we didn’t know we had.
What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?
I went to the beach.
What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?
Richard Flanagan’s Question 7. His writing is elegant and compelling, and in this memoir, he weaves together his own personal story with some past major, and grim, events. The result is dazzling: a human and intimate narrative set against a grand historical sweep.
What’s next on the agenda for you?
I’m mulling over a few ideas, one of which is responding to numerous requests for a sequel to Rita Vegas. In the meantime, I’m enjoying adding to a collection of short stories.
Mary Egan Publishing