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The
Antipodeans
- by Greg McGee
The Antipodeans, set mainly in Venice and Friuli, has
been a 30-year labour of love for author Greg McGee. The idea was first sparked
when he lived in that region and became fascinated by tales of escaped Kiwi
prisoners of war and their links to the Italian resistance. Greg was sure there
was a story there, but took many years to work out how to tell it.
From Venice to the hinterland of the South Island of New Zealand,
from the execution of a Gestapo commander in the last days of World War II to
contemporary real estate shenanigans in Auckland, from political assassination
in the darkest days of the Red Brigade to the vaulting cosmology of particle
physics, the novel is vast in scope but indomitably human in its focus.
Four questions for
Greg McGee
You lived in Italy
for a period during your time as a professional rugby player. Which part of
Italy was it and what are your key memories of that time?
I lived in Italy for
about 18 months, from April/May 1976. I went to Perugia, did a short course in
Italian at the Università per Stranieri, poi sono andato a Casale Sul Sile, un
piccolo paese in vicino a Treviso, dove ho fatto giocatore/allenatore d'una
squadra di rugby in Serie A. That experience was a seminal moment in my life,
for many reasons: living so close to Venice (where I had friends from the
team), but above all being involved in a common endeavour with the locals. I
was politically naive at a time in Italy when everything was political - the
June elections in 76 had produced ‘the historic compromise’ with Berlinguer,
the universities were often occupied, the Red Brigade was blowing up
banks, the trains were full of soldiers and the skies full of vapour trails
from Nato jets - very different!
With this novel you
treat for the first time a new topic, one which is deeply anchored in the
conscience of many new Zealanders, old and young. What inspired you to write a
novel about NZ soldiers in Italy ?
The
Antipodeans is not a war novel. There are three story strands, one from 1942 to
1951, one from 1976, but the main strand is contemporary, where a young woman
tries to unravel family connections that go back three generations. It is true
that the earliest inspiration came from taking my father back to the
battlefields (Cassino, the Sangro, Faenza etc.) where he’d been in WWII, but I
was also inspired by my time in Italy, and by what I saw as a mutual
fascination between Italy and NZ for each other’s countries - which are about
the same size and at the opposite ends of the earth (the antipodes of the
title).
Since living in New
Zealand, I have often heard people telling the stories of their
grandfathers/great uncles who fought in Italy in WWII. Is your novel based on
biographical material, perhaps something that happened to a family member or to
someone you know or heard about?
After I’d made the
tour with my father in 78, I took him back to my village and he began talking
to the other men there about war experiences. One of the old men then showed me
the bullet holes in his stalle from a Nazi Stormtrooper’s machine gun, which
had been fired at an escaped NZ POW hiding in the hay-loft. He told me the Kiwi
had escaped and had fought with the partigiani further north. This was the
first I’d heard of an Italian resistance. From that moment I began researching
everything I could find about the partisans and the big connections between
them and Kiwi (and other) POWs who had escaped into the Veneto countryside
after the Armistice of September 1943, and who became known as Il Battaglione
di Lepre, because they were hunted from dawn to dusk.
What was the most
difficult task during your 16-year research phase, and did you come across
something that you didn’t expect and that prompted you to introduce new
elements into your original plot or even give it a new direction?
The above probably
answers this question too. The most difficult decision about the book was
deciding who was to tell the different strands of a complex story. Once that
decision was made, a structure suggested itself, and I was on my way, courtesy
of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Trust, which allowed me to go back to the
Veneto and Friuli and walk in the steps of my characters. The most surprising
thing I found was the grand old farm-house beside the river Livenza, which had
been PG 107/7, the prison from which my characters (and real POWs) had escaped.
The upper windows were still bricked up. I could look at the fields they had
worked and imagine them hiding all around there after the Armistice.
Interview by Stefania Perrotta
About the Author
In his early 20s, Greg
McGee played rugby as a Junior All Black and became an All Black trialist. He
graduated from the University of Otago with a law degree in 1972. He first came
to literary attention when he wrote the iconic New Zealand play Foreskin’s
Lament (1980), followed by Tooth and Claw (1983), Out in the Cold
(1983), and Whitemen (1986), each drama set in the rugby world. Since
then he has had a successful career writing mainly for television, but again
broke into the literary consciousness as Alix Bosco, winning the 2010 Ngaio
Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. In 2012, Greg published Love & Money,
his first novel under his own name, and in 2013 he was awarded the Katherine
Mansfield Menton Fellowship.
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Feltre is here, let me know if you would like to visit, especially during the Palio, and I will be happy to give you some information (my Mother is from Feltre). And if you would like to know to which of the four city wards I belong, I am from Santo Stefano, represented by a golden horn on a red background (here is my son watching the horse race with the Santo Stefano's flag). Santo Stefano's costumes are often red (like the one I am wearing here). FYI, the costumes are beautiful but very heavy!
In the very centre of the town it is possible to find the Roman Arena, surrounded by the so –called park which boasts the presence of the Eremitani Museum, full of Pre-Roman finds, the Eremitani Church and the famous Scrovegni Chapel, one most important works of European painting. People who enter this little masterpiece find themselves surrounded by an amazing cycle of frescoes painted by the Tuscan painter Giotto, which illustrate the life of Mary, Jesus and the Passion, ending with a striking vision of the Last Judgement.
Padua is also an important destination for religious pilgrimages because of the presence of the Basilica of St Anthony, a sanctuary which holds the remains of St Anthony and calls millions of people every year. Close to the Basilica there is Prato della Valle, one of the biggest squares in Europe, which is a great gathering point for all those people who want to enjoy a relaxing break in a green spot right in the city centre. Otherwise, for those people who prefer a good coffee Caffe’ Pedrocchi offers the most ancient and luxurious location in town.
The late afternoon is the moment when Padua completely changes and reveals itself as the most spirited town in the Veneto region. This is the moment when all the students who attend the University of Padua (the oldest University of Europe after Bologna) finish their lessons and go out to enjoy a good aperitivo with a typical pre-dinner drink called Spritz. 
In few hours the squares around palazzo della Ragione called Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta are filled with people of all ages who keep hanging around for the whole evening, having a chat and a good drink under the suggestive Clocktower in Piazza dei Signori or all along the fascinating little streets of the Jewish Ghetto.
