Doug PollardTranscript - author Kerry Greenwood
DOUG: For many years now, I’ve been following the adventures of two very different fictional detectives; one, a flapper in ‘20s Melbourne the other, an artisan baker in the city, today. They’re both the creations of my next guest the author, Kerry Greenwood, but her latest book is thousands of miles and thousands of years away in ancient Egypt. But a rather different ancient Egypt than you may have read of before, Kerry joins us on the line now. Good morning, Kerry.
KERRY: (and)Good morning to you.
DOUG: Welcome to the show - - -
KERRY: Thank you.
DOUG: I must say straight up, I’ve been a fan of yours for years.
KERRY: Thank you [laughs]
DOUG: (and)I think I’ve got nearly all your books [laughs] so it’s a real pleasure to talk to you this morning.
KERRY: Thank you very much.
DOUG: “Out of the Black Land” however is not like Phryne Fisher or Corrina Chapman is it?
KERRY: No, it’s not. It’s not a mystery.
DOUG: It’s not a mystery and it’s also set in ancient Egypt - - -
KERRY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - why did you decide to write a book about ancient Egypt?
KERRY: I thought if I hadn’t been so awful at mathematics I would have been an archaeologist but such was not my fate but I’ve always been very interested; so, I was reading about – continuously reading about Akhenaten. The king who decided – the pharaoh, who decided to replace all the Egyptian gods with one god, with him as its only avatar and he was getting such a good press from all the Christians who thought a monotheist must be better than a polytheist - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: - - - and I thought ‘I don’t like this’ so I started researching it and I started researching more and I went to Egypt and I taught myself to read hieroglyphics which isn’t really difficult – and stuff – and so, I thought – I finally have to write a book to find out what I really think about it. I also noticed that the Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians had a thing called a general concession which you have to confess before they weigh your heart against a feather when you’re dead and if you get it wrong you get your heart eaten by a crocodile creature called: Apophis. So you want to get it right.
DOUG: Indeed, you do.
KERRY: They were very clear about what the sins of the people were. So, it’s got a lot of sins about eating the wrong meat on holidays, it’s got that it’s a sin to have sex with a woman who was a child which is good but it’s got nothing about homosexuality at all and I found this tomb in the Valley of Kings, it was the tomb of a great judge and there were two men making love in the reeds, along with a whole lot of beautiful paintings of people making wine. Which is obviously something that this - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
KERRY: - - - was interested in. When I started researching it, I found that nobody says anything about homosexuality being bad. It’s not a sin. I thought it’d be really interesting to write a whole novel about people who aren’t starting off with the feeling there’s something wrong with them.
DOUG: Well, throughout the book I think it’s fair to say to book would appeal to polyamorists of all kinds - - -
KERRY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - because your ancient Egyptians don’t have any hang-ups about gay sex, straight sex – whatever.
KERRY: No.
DOUG: M’mm, except as you rightly point out and rightly so, against abusing a child.
KERRY: Yes, of course – you know, that was one of the things you had to confess you hadn’t done. But there was absolutely nothing about men and men, women and women. Since my favourite source is my favourite historian, Herodotus. Who says the ancient Egyptians do everything differently - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: - - - they won’t even kiss a Greek in case he’s eaten beef. Poor man, I always thought that had a certain personal feeling about it - - -
DOUG: Perhaps if he’d eaten garlic rather than beef?
KERRY: Yes, exactly. Exactly. But – m’mm, this guy. He was a great royal judge. He was very important. A seriously important person - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
KERRY: - - - so what’s in his tomb, the things that were really important to him were the men making love in the reeds outside a little hut, with a dog outside it – you know, that’s what he really wanted - - -
DOUG: Yeah, which is a key image in the book.
KERRY: - - - yeah.
DOUG: In fact what you end with.
KERRY: Yeah - - -
DOUG: Which is really beautiful.
KERRY: - - - yeah.
DOUG: You don’t really cotton much to the state of scholarly Egyptology, judging by the afterword you’ve got in the book as well [laughs]
KERRY: It’s completely bonkers. The more research I did the weirder it got, even on really simple things. They contradict each other rotten. Egypt has such a long history that you could probably find a period in Egyptian history, somewhere, to support any theory that you had up to and including the arrival of the Martians.
DOUG: Where did you take your sources from or how did you build your picture of what the Egyptians were like?
KERRY: With Egypt because of the climate and everything, their tendency to write everything down you’ve got immense numbers of things – you know, every tomb is stuffed with stuff and there’s also a serious number of [indistinct] king lists – m’mm, all kinds of satires, songs. There’s a gorgeous lesbian love song for instance - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
KERRY: - - - and so, that’s where I really got it from. I just went back to the original sources. Commentary was just too complicated.
DOUG: You also said that as far as possible you tried to use the words of the actual historical characters themselves?
KERRY: M’mm.
DOUG: Where did you get those words from?
KERRY: They’re all written down, not all of them. Admittedly, I added quite a lot of extra stuff. I didn’t even get into the difficulties of trying to pronounce ancient Egyptian because nobody knows how to do it despite "Stargate" - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: But there’s the [indistinct] of traits, there’s the words that ascribed to his son. There’s an awful lot of literature - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
KERRY: - - - songs, love stories. Jokes. I thought when I’d started researching it, the Egyptians were death worshippers – I mean, they spent so much time preparing their tomb. But they’re not. They just wanted to party-on in the afterlife. The afterlife in Egypt, the Egyptian afterlife is exactly the same as Egypt. It’s called: The Field of Reeds - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
KERRY: But the only thing is it hasn’t got mosquitoes and you don’t have to do any work. Because you have all these little creatures buried – little figures, buried with you called: Shabti - - -
DOUG: Shabti, yes.
KERRY: - - - they do all your work after you die. So all you’ve got to do is lounge around and drink beer.
DOUG: No danger of the crocodile coming to get you if you’ve got past him in the first place.
KERRY: But you have to get past him first, yes. The trick bit in that which is truth.
DOUG: Yes. Now, this character – the sun-worshipping pharaoh?
KERRY: Yeah.
DOUG: Just to fill-in a little bit for people who may not know. His royal wife was Nefertiti.
KERRY: That’s right.
DOUG: Now, we all know who Nefertiti is. This really beautiful woman. You’ve made her into a real airhead?
KERRY: I’m afraid so, yes.
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: That was the impression I got with her, anybody who would agree to marry Akhenaten to start with because Egyptian women had a choice and you really look at him and think: oh, come now. He’s obviously got something seriously wrong with him but the lineage of Egypt lies with its daughters, not in its sons. The pharaoh’s son will not become a pharaoh unless he marries a suitable daughter so she could make-up her own mind if she wanted to and anybody who agreed to do that has to be a nutcase.
DOUG: We don’t actually know what was wrong with Akhenaten, do we - - -
KERRY: No.
DOUG: - - - but as you point out the representations of him changed throughout his life and got weirder and weirder - - -
KERRY: It got worse and worse. I think the suggestion of Froelich's Syndrome is probably the best one. They did say he was seriously ill when he was 12 and that from then on he got weirder and weirder and stranger and stranger. He looks strangely like – m’mm, the representation of a god called: “Hapi”, who was part hippopotamus and he was possibly a hermaphrodite. We don’t really know. But the idea that he was a monotheist, he must’ve been a fine upstanding, stalwart person and - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: - - - this was mere mannerism is ridiculous - - -
DOUG: But you’ve managed to turn most conventional ideas of what this period of Egyptian history was like, on its head. Because as you say, Akhenaten to a lot of historians is a bit of a hero for sweeping away the priesthood of Amen-Ra, for establishing monotheism and the General Horemheb who comes in at the end and cleans up as it were, is a great villain. You’ve turned that completely on its head.
KERRY: Yeah – well, it’s just my considered opinion and I did a lot of work on it. I myself, have no particular opinions on the monotheists and polytheists. I wouldn’t mind being a polytheist – you know, if there were actual gods to worship I’d probably manage it - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
KERRY: - - - but the thing about Egypt is, the reason why it was always rich and only suffered one famine which was during as it happens, during the reign of Akhenaten is that they were so carefully arranged. Saved up so much wheat every year and it was the priests of Amen-Ra who were the civil service. So it follows, if you sweep away this civil service then all sorts of stuff is going to go wrong.
DOUG: Yeah. Because you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water.
KERRY: Absolutely.
DOUG: You’re throwing out all the expertise you’ve accumulated; well, I must say you’ve managed to turn it into a very interesting story. I kept turning the pages wondering who was going to pop-out next - - -
KERRY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - and it’s also very nice to have, speaking as a gay man it’s very nice to have a book where the lead character is I think, fundamentally gay. Although functional with women, too - - -
KERRY: He is fundamentally gay all right, it’s a long love story between and his friend Kheperren - - -
DOUG: Who’s a soldier.
KERRY: - - - yes.
DOUG: Albeit somewhat a reluctant one.
KERRY: Yes, poor boy.
DOUG: [laughs] It’s very nice that you give them a happy ending, too.
KERRY: Yeah. Well, he must have had a happy ending because his tomb is a very happy tomb.
DOUG: That’s a good argument.
KERRY: Well it is. If you’re getting most of your information from tomb walls, that’s where it comes from.
DOUG: Okay; I disappeared online just before I came on air and I discovered not only have you this book out but you’ve also got another Phryne Fisher out too?
KERRY: Yes. It’s coming out on the second of October, I believe.
DOUG: You’ve been really busy?
KERRY: Yes, I have. I like writing novels. People are paying me for it, it’s so nice of them [laughs]
DOUG: I wish someone would make a TV series out of Phryne – you know? I would love to see a period TV series with that Hispano-Suiza sweeping ‘round the streets of Melbourne.
KERRY: M’mm and the clothes. Yeah. Gosh it’d be gorgeous.
DOUG: Yes, the beautiful clothes of the period, too.
KERRY: Yeah - - -
DOUG: But anyway, we’re here to talk about “Out of the Black Land”. Is that now published, is that available?
KERRY: Yes. You can get it from Clandestine Press on their website or from whatever gay bookshop is in your city.
DOUG: We’ve got Hares and Hyenas, of course.
KERRY: Hares and Hyenas will have copies.
DOUG: Okay – well, thank you very much. It was a pleasure talking to you, Kerry.
KERRY: Lovely to talk to you, too, my dear.
DOUG: I’ll look forward to the Phryne book as well.
KERRY: Thank you very much.
DOUG: Thanks for your time this morning.
KERRY: It’s a pleasure. ‘Bye, ‘bye my dear.
DOUG: ‘Bye, ‘bye. That was Kerry Greenwood there, the author of: Out of the Black Land. It’s among other things a gay love story set in ancient Egypt. Quite fascinating as I say, because if you know anything about ancient Egypt it turns all the conventional wisdom about ancient Egypt on its head and as you heard, she has very trenchant views about the state of Egyptology. No time at all for the academics who seems to have made such a “dogs breakfast” of the field as she says in the book; so, that’s “Out of the Black Land” by Kerry Greenwood and it’s available from Clandestine Press. I’m sure Hares and Hyenas will have it, too.
