Radio Interview: Martina Nicolls talks with Madison Brightwell about her third novel, Bardot’s Comet

The following is an extract of a radio interview on 24 August 2012 with Madison Brightwell, focusing on my third novel, Bardot’s Comet. The full interview is 29:17 minutes and can be heard on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/strategic-book-club/2012/08/24/author-martina-nicolls

Madison Brightwell: What can readers expect in your third novel, Bardot’s Comet, because it is very different from your previous novels, The Sudan Curse and Kashmir on a Knife-Edge, which are primarily about specific countries?

Martina Nicolls: My first two novels are factional stories - fiction based on fact - about my work in Sudan and Kashmir. Bardot’s Comet is historical literary fiction.  In Bardot’s Comet, the reader immediately knows that a famous female mathematician and astronomer is dead – she’s been murdered.  The time period is 1966-1969, so it is unusual for a woman, such as Prudence Bari, to rise to fame in a non-traditional, or male dominated field of work. The novel is set primarily in a university and its surrounds. The other characters in the novel either love her or hate her – young men who are obsessed by her beauty, young men who want to marry her, critics who see her as breaking up traditional family values because she supports women working, and feminists who either support her or not.

Cyril Silverman is a Svengali-type figure whom Prudence is attracted to, but his lover Darren Hicks is insanely jealous of their friendship. Oswald Danes is a farmer who has known her for 20 years, they grew up together and everyone assumes they will marry. Fabian Rossi is her sexy Italian manager. Michael McShane is a brooding poet and one she confides in. Innes Cartwright is her genius student who relies on Prudence for inspiration and guidance. Philip Brownley and Richard Smythe are media men who chase her for interviews. Arlene Bernie is a famous actress and lesbian and they spend a lot of time together so that sets gossipmongers talking, and Polly Smith is a student in love with every male she sees. 

Bardot’s Comet has two narrators; it is narrated by Leonardo Bari, the father, and by the Police Commissioner who finds the father’s journal. What was the thinking behind this two-narrators concept?

I wrote Bardot’s Comet with Leonardo Bari, the father in mind. He’s an Italian who migrated to Australia; he married; he lost his wife at childbirth and so he raised Prudence as a single father. So I wanted the novel to be feminist story but from a man’s perspective. The father writes about Prudence in his journal. The journal is found when he dies. It’s in the hands of the Police Commissioner who investigated the crime. For the reader, and the Police Commissioner, does a person who finds a journal actually believe what is written in it? That’s the question. Why should the reader believe the father just because he writes the journal? Because this is loosely a crime novel, I wanted another strong male character, that is, the Police Commissioner, to fill in the gaps. The gaps are filled in from a police perspective, after the event, because the Police Commissioner has interviewed all suspects. The difference between the father’s narrative and the police commissioner’s narrative is that the father’s narrative is emotional whereas the Police Commissioner’s narrative is more logical and factual.

So you have both the emotional side and logical narratives about your hero, Prudence, and you have the male and female perspective too. I have a question regarding the time period: the Sixties: 1966-1969. Did you think about the Sixties zeitgeist first and then come up with your story or the other way around?

I knew I wanted to write about a female mathematician as a strong character. I’m a female mathematician. There were only three females in a lecture room of 150 students when I was going through university. Initially, I planned her to be like Germaine Greer, the well-known Australian feminist scholar who wrote The Female Eunuch, which was both popular and controversial at the time. This was partly due to my interest in science and mathematics because I have a university degree in mathematics. I also love the Sixties because it’s so revolutionary. So I had the story first, and then I set it in the 1960s with the space race to the moon, the rise of feminism, the student riots about the Vietnam war, the confusion of male and female identities (with the unisex look), and also the nature versus nurture debate. Prudence was successful, but was it because of her father or was it due to her environment? So I wanted the Sixties to be prominent and to be explored in the novel. It’s almost an issue-based story. There’s even a section that debates the scientific mind – the male brain verses the female brain. Prudence’s critics think that she has a male brain because she’s interested in mathematics, and therefore she must be flawed as a woman – she hasn’t married, she doesn’t talk about having children, all she talks about is science and work. She is seen to be very masculine, and not the nice homebound housewife.

The father-daughter relationship is explored a lot and it seems unusual. Her father styles his daughter’s hair and seems to be so concerned about her relationships with men?

Many people have questioned me about their relationship as they think there is something untoward about their relationship. Let’s remember that it’s the Sixties. Leonardo is a mathematician, but he has very creative, aesthetic leanings – he’s Italian and he loves fashion and hair and movies and film stars and decorating his home with flowers and he loves his garden – in fact he’s got a lot of feminine qualities. Yet his daughter is quite masculine. I wanted to create doubt in the readers’ minds about the father, but I also wanted to deliberately blur the boundaries between males and females and the gender norms of the times. In the Sixties, young males grew their hair long, females expressed their tougher side, and it wasn’t all love and nudity – there was also conflict about family values, about young men going to war in a foreign country, and conflict with the establishment/the government. These are all themes that are probably still current today.

The whole book explores what it is to be male and to be female, and also the reversal of roles. The other interesting emphasis is on what is science and what isn’t science: for example, mathematics versus numerology.

The father is a mathematician, but he is also interested in numerology. Numerology is not seen as mathematics even though it’s number-based. Many people view it as nonsense. Others view it as magical or occult-driven. This is the same for astronomy (the study of the planets) and astrology (which is about horoscopes and predictions). So we have mathematic s and numerology and astronomy and astrology. Again, the themes show the blurring between boundaries.

They could also represent two halves of the brain, the left and the right. There is also a 26 million years comet, the periodic event – isn’t this an anachronism? How do you hope your science readers and your non-science readers will process this information in the context of the novel?

Readers don’t need a science background. It’s intended as another debatable topic because science was very much to the fore. I think some people will like the re-creation of the lunar landing of July 1969. In the novel we also have science verses religion – there’s a very religious character: a science student who wants to be a priest. So even within science we have disagreements, controversy, and conflict. There was general disagreement among dinosaur experts, called palaeontologists, and astronomers concerning the date at which dinosaurs are believed to have disappeared, but there is a great deal of controversy as to what caused them to disappear.  So far there are about 50 different theories, including that dinosaurs died of AIDS.  One theory is a comet impact. Sepkoski, a famous palaeontologist at the time, wrote that the extinction of dinosaurs is just one of many catastrophes that occurred in 26 million year cycles. That means every 26 million years, over the past 250 million years, there was a catastrophic event caused by a comet. These were caused by the periodic disturbance of the Oort cloud by the Sun’s twin star, Nemesis, which released numerous comets into the solar system that collided with Earth. It was, in fact, a real debate between scientists at the time.  It was a real theory at the time and again quite controversial. I didn’t make it up!

Bardot’s Comet is both scientific and psychological. From the feedback you’ve received from readers, what have been the aspects of Bardot’s Comet that people have most enjoyed?

(Technical difficulties) Readers like the range of emotions that they feel– from anger to joy. Many have said that they’ve even cried while reading it. They liked the Sixties scientific inventions, but also the depth of characters. So I think it’s about 50-50 between the science and psychological elements.

Leonardo Bari is the central character, even though it’s about Prudence. Is he someone you resonate with personally?

Friends have said that they like Leonardo – they see him as a nice man. He is not an evil character, so they don’t dislike him. But they are very often frustrated with him and his lack of action. He’s a procrastinator; he’s a ditherer. I liked developing his character, but I also liked the development of Cyril as a Svengali-type character. This was based on the Charles Manson killings in the United States in the 1960s and I drew upon that kind of obsessive relationship that his followers have with him. So I loved drawing out his character.

Your family migrated to Australia from England and Germany. Do you think this offers you an advantage or disadvantage for writing fiction set in Australia?

Bardot’s Comet focuses heavily on Leonardo Bari as a migrant, so my family background has been advantageous in that respect. I think I can be steeped in his inner knowledge of what it means to be a migrant, but also be able to step back from my experience to see an outsider’s perspective. But basically, a story is a story is a story, and it doesn’t matter where you come from or where you’re going, you still have an opinion about the country where you’ve come from and where you currently live. I think readers can relate to the migrant experience, or to others that they know.

How did you come up with the title, Bardot’s Comet?

A comet strikes Earth on the day of Prudence Bari’s death. It’s an actual event that did happen in Australia. The comet was called the Murchison Comet, because it struck near the town of Murchison. Both Prudence and her father are interested in science and astronomy, but it is also her fateful day. She knows about it because it occurred at about 10 o’clock in the morning and she hears it on the news. Prudence renames the comet Bardot’s Comet because the date was also the 35^th birthday of Bridgette Bardot, the French actress whom her father adores, and she thinks no one will remember the name Murchison. So the title brings together Bridgette Bardot of the Sixties and the comet which occurred on that date. To some people, the comet is a predictor of doom so I wanted to have that element too.

Is that true that the comet strikes on Bridgette Bardot’s birthday 

Yes, that’s a true event. All the [science] events in the novel are true.

What is next after Bardot’s Comet?

This year I released a children’s science and poetry book called The Komodo Verses: Dragon Poems, for children and early readers which tells of the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard in the world, in poetry form. So it presents science facts in a creative way. It has great photographs of the Komodo dragon too. So it’s a science book for children because of my interest in science. And I have just submitted my next novel to my publisher, Strategic Book Publishing in New York, about Liberia in West Africa.

You obviously have a real passion for writing. What advice do you have for people who want to write?

Write of something that you know and that is of interest to you. Have a story to tell and know the art of story-telling.  Be true to your style of writing, but also be open to advice, especially from editors or publishers! I have a degree in communication and English as well as science and I put the two together. So you do need a certain level of skill and discipline. Or you can learn the craft.

Thank you and we look forward to reading your next novel about Liberia and also your children’s poetry book. That’s Martina Nicolls, and all her books are available in electronic version.

My pleasure!

(Bardot's Comet by Martina Nicolls is available on amazon.com and other online book stores)