Paul Jennings was 11 years old when he first thought about bashing his father over the head with a hammer.
The thought terrified him at the time. He wondered if he was insane.
He worried that if anyone found out about those intrusive, insistent thoughts he would be taken to an asylum.
Wait, what?
The man who wrote Singenpoo, Unreal, and Round The Twist? The beloved author of some of Australia's best-known children's stories?
The same.
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The rejection letter
Memoirs are tricky things to write, Jennings confesses.
At 77, he has just released his own, titled Untwisted: The Story Of My Life.
"I think it's the most difficult book I've ever written," he said this week.
It charts his life and deals with facts, but he approached it more like a novel. That played to his strengths, he figured.
With that in mind, it expertly weaves in anecdotes from his early years through to now.
It tells of how he was born in England and moved to Australia with his parents and sister when he was six.
He grew up in suburban Melbourne and became a teacher then lecturer after leaving school at 17, having never completed year 12.
Jennings liked telling stories from a young age and even sent a short, written piece to the Australian Women's Weekly magazine when he was 13.
It was politely rejected, but his confidence was shattered, and he wouldn't submit another piece of writing until he was almost 40.
That was Unreal — the collection of eight short children's stories that became a near-instant success and launched a writing career that has led to 70 books and nearly 10 million copies sold.
So far so good, as far as memoirs go.
Yet Jennings doesn't shy from the painful and personal memories of his own childhood, particularly his relationship with his dad.
He lingers on the details that offer insight into the way his upbringing shaped his life and the stories for which he would come to be known.
'The pain was excruciating'
As far as Jennings can discern, his father Arthur never wanted kids.
This manifested itself in a few ways.
His sister was ignored and he became the target for snide or outright cruel comments and "lessons".
His dad made a lot of comments that cut deeply.
"You will never be fit for anything but the workshop."
"Shut up. It's your fault."
"You will never pass."
"That was to teach you about electricity."
The first two were said when Jennings was just six. The last one was uttered a bit later in the same garage that the hammer sat.
Jennings was called over to the lawnmower and told to hold the end of the high-tension lead in one hand and touch the spark plug with the other.
His dad yanked on the starter cord and the engine turned over.
"A million little hammers pummelled my body from within. The pain was excruciating," Jennings recalls in the book.
He knew something was wrong with the relationship and thought it was his fault.
He knew he disliked his dad, but being only 11 it didn't occur to him that his dad disliked him back.
"All the other boys I knew adored their fathers. They even boasted about them," he said.
Over time, Jennings' dislike turned to disgust. That's when the hammer thoughts started.
"These inner images ruined my teenage years and beyond," he writes.
"This problem followed me into middle age.
"I never recovered from these feelings of disgust. Right up until the day of his death I hated myself for having them."
His dad never lived to see his writing success. But Jennings is sure it wouldn't have made any difference.
"I think he would have said, 'It's only kids' stuff'. I don't think I think he was ever proud of me," he said.
Jennings would later tell a therapist about the hammer and be relieved when told it wasn't uncommon and that the therapist wasn't surprised.
The one theme that keeps cropping up
It's not like there wasn't some happiness in his youth.
Jennings found great solace in religion and the community around it, although later in life became agnostic.
There are stories in the memoir that hint at a rebellious side and a clear affection for his mother and sister.
So, asked whether he had a happy childhood, the question appears to stump Jennings.
"I'm just trying to think of the honest answer about that," he replies after a long pause.
"I do think it was filled with anxieties and worries. I think there were moments of fun. It was a mixed bag.
And then Jennings delivers the kicker:
"It's hard to know where your personality originates from, but I probably was very introspective and observant of people and their foibles."
Those observations have helped inspire his stories. And the themes of his own childhood have crept into his work, even against his own will at times.
Bullies often get their comeuppance, for example.
Grifters, narcissists and conmen also cop it.
Perhaps more tellingly, parenting crops up a lot.
"There's a theme which comes up all the time, which is the separation of the parent and the child," Jennings says.
"And it's an incredibly powerful thing, because the loss of a child is enormous to a parent. And the loss of a parent is enormous to a child.
"That theme, I realised after a couple of years, it was poking its nose up quite a bit. And I kept saying to myself, 'I'm never doing that theme again'."
He estimates there are about 20 stories where the parent-child theme is central.
Towards the end of his short stories series, he decided to write a silly piece called Lennie Lighthouse, about a boy whose teeth shone.
"I thought that's a really funny idea. It's a great story," he said.
What came out was a tale of an orphan who was the only boy in the world with shining teeth.
He goes on a journey to find his mum and the story ends with the two meeting at a railway station and coming to a loving embrace.
"I thought it was a terrific story," Jennings recalls.
"Then I said, 'You've done it again!' it started off being about luminous teeth, and it's ended up being the separation of the mother and the child."
Which brings Jennings to the one story he regrets writing.
'I think it's too hard for children'
No Is Yes is a short story about a father with exceptional language skills who raises his daughter in isolation as part of an experiment.
He teaches her a mixed-up version of English, swapping around the words for common objects and names.
For example, he tells her that salt is called pepper, so when she asks for the salt she'll be given pepper.
He also teaches her no means yes.
As the story progresses, the daughter escapes and falls in love with a boy, but he struggles to understand her or why she can't talk properly.
It ends with her father's house being consumed by fire while he is trapped inside. When the firemen arrive, they ask if anyone is in the house.
"No," she replies.
This story was originally intended for young adults, not the smaller kids Jennings normally writes for.
But a change in the publishing schedule meant it found its way into a collection for children.
"There aren't many things that I wish I hadn't written, but probably one of them was No Is Yes," Jennings reflected this week.
"I don't like the notion that your parents might not love you. I think it's too hard for children.
"And I do think that children who do have parents that don't love them — and I had one who didn't — they invent a parent who does.
"And with my father, the guilt I felt was that I didn't like him … it became my problem, when it was his."
The king on the throne
Jennings continues to write.
His latest books, the Different series, are more serious novellas that sprinkle in the fun along the way.
He takes great pride in his work and is pleased that it has found a welcoming audience.
Yet for someone who is best known for humorous and quirky stories, he admits to finding the serious stuff easier.
Give him a day and he could write a story that will make you cry. A story that will make you laugh? That is a far harder task, he says.
For all this, he sits among the luminaries of Australian children's authors.
In Untwisted, he recounts the experience of meeting Roald Dahl after an event in the late 1980s, when Dahl was 72.
Authors were lined up in pairs to greet him as he sat on a lush chair at the end of the room.
"The king on the throne," is how Jennings describes him.
Now, decades later and millions of copies sold, is Jennings the king on the throne?
He laughs at the thought, then pauses again.
"I might have been the king on the throne at one stage … other people have come along now," he says.
"I'm living in this country town where I've been for the last 35 years and I'm just another person down here.
"I'm in a really comfortable place."
Peace, at last.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTEwLTA4L3BhdWwtamVubmluZ3Mtb24taGlzLW1lbW9pci1ib29rcy1hbmQtb3duLXRyb3VibGVkLWNoaWxkaG9vZC8xMjY4NTI5NNIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjY4NTI5NA?oc=5
2020-10-07 19:14:00Z
CAIiEBfvzCFfJge1DVugaxB89FAqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDDc2g4
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