Murakami sleuths and Parisian film watching: an interview with Tom Baragwanath

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the 233rd instalment of our long-running author interview series, 9mm - but the first in around a year, and only the second in the past two and a half years. After more than 230 author interviews between 2010-2021, the series largely went into hiatus, for a variety of personal reasons.

After averaging more than 200 posts per year the first 12 years of Crime Watch, it has languished somewhat during the pandemic, so I do appreciate all of you who still check in now and then, reading some of the many author interviews, reviews, and other pieces on here (2,500+ posts) and occasional new pieces. 

Looking ahead, I plan to be more regularly posting on Crime Watch once more, at least in terms of reviews and author interviews and awards news etc. The website needs a revamp and reorganisation, but regardless of 'look', it will continue to shine a light on cool crime and thriller authors and books from all over the world, including back home 'Down Under' in New Zealand and Australia. 

Thanks for reading and sharing the 9mm series, and Crime Watch in general (and my work elsewhere) over the years. I've had a lot of fun talking to some amazing crime writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you. You can check out the full list of of past 9mm interviewees here. What a line-up. 

With lots more fun to come. Thanks everyone. 

If you've got a favourite crime writer who hasn't yet been part of the 9mm series, please do let me know in the comments or by message, and now I'm back on deck more fully, I'll look to make that happen for you. We've got some more interviews with cool writers 'already in the can' that will be published soon, so lots to look forward to over the coming weeks and months. 

Tom Baragwanath at his UK launch at Waterstones Covent Garden

Today I'm very pleased to welcome a fantastic fresh new voice in Antipodean crime fiction, Tom Baragwanath, in a new 9mm interview that is being co-published on Murder is Everywhere. I had the pleasure of meeting Tom for the first time last year at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing festival in Harrogate - he was over to meet his British publishers etc. We caught up again earlier this year at a well-attended London launch of the UK hardback of PAPER CAGE, at Waterstones Covent Garden

Originally from Masterton, in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand's North Island, Tom currently lives in Paris. His debut PAPER CAGE won the 2021 Michael Gifkins prize for unpublished manuscripts, and was released in Australia and New Zealand by Text Publishing. It was a finalist for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel, and longlisted for Best Novel. It was also shortlisted for the 2023 Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction, and has now been published in hardcover in the UK and USA in 2024. Between pastries, Tom is working on his next novel.

But for now, Tom becomes the latest author (and first in a while) to stare down the barrel of 9mm.

9MM: AN INTERVIEW WITH TOM BARAGWANATH

Who is your favourite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

It's not exactly classic crime fiction, but the unnamed narrator of Haruki Murakami's 'Trilogy of the Rat' series (Hear the Wind Sing, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance Dance Dance) is a personal favourite of mine. He's cool and detached in typical hard-boiled fashion, but slightly bungling and remote in that special Murakami kind of way – and just resourceful enough to get to the bottom of things (even the more existential or philosophical mysteries). 

What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

The first book I remember truly loving was a book about space shuttles my grandmother used to read to me before I could read for myself. I loved that book so much it disintegrated. As for novels, a friend put a copy of Catch-22 in my hands when I was around thirteen, and I just couldn't believe what I was reading: the gallows humour, the bleak yet oddly uplifting tone, and the incredible inventiveness of the language. Just an incredible book for a teenager to discover.

Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

I had a bunch of short stories published in my twenties and early thirties, mostly presenting thinly-veiled versions of myself in situations taken loosely from my own life. I still like some of them – but some of them I'm pretty happy to forget. 

Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

I live in Paris, so I'm morally obligated to see a lot of films – it's pretty much part of the application for residency there. This habit has been curtailed a bit by the presence of a toddler in my life, but it's still my favourite thing. Besides that, I try to run in Buttes-Chaumont as much as I can. 

Castlepoint Scenic reserve on the Wairarapa coastline

What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

Take a walk up Castle Rock at Castlepoint on the east coast past Masterton, and walk over to Christmas Bay for good measure. Bonus points if you manage to find the one day in a hundred when it isn't blowing a gale. 

If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Mark Ruffalo. Looks nothing like me, but he's my guy. 

Of your writings, which is your favourite or a bit special to you for any particular reason, and why?

The final chapter in Paper Cage is probably my favourite. I won't say too much about why, but I was working on the version that ended up going to print when my wife and I were expecting our son, and I was reaching for a sense of care and protectiveness I couldn't quite describe at that moment – but I think I managed it. A big thanks to my publisher at Knopf, Caitlin Landuyt – she really pushed me to reflect on the kind of tone we wanted to end on in the final section of the book. 

What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut novel in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

I had a call with Michael Heyward and Mandy Brett of Text Publishing to let me know I'd won the Gifkins Prize at about 9am one summer morning in Paris. I was exploding with excitement, but I had to wait until I finished work to go out and celebrate.

What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

On the train from London to Harrogate for the crime festival in 2023, I was having a delightful chat with the writer SA Cosby about Don Delillo, Cormac McCarthy, and all the rest, when some chap's laptop bag fell off the rack and beaned me in the head. He was so apologetic he pre-ordered Paper Cage right then and there. A few more head injuries and I'll be a best-seller.

Thanks, Tom, we appreciate you having a chat with us. 

Tom Baragwanath will be appearing on Thursday as part of the 'Whose Crime Is It Anyway?' event at Capital Crime, where two teams of crime writers battle game-show style. His debut novel PAPER CAGE is out now in the UK, United States Australia, and New Zealand.