By the time I got talking to Markus Zusak, I felt I knew this 42-year-old Australian writer a little bit. Well, I often feel that way about authors I love and admire and reread compulsively, but this time the feeling had a little more ground. I was waiting for the better part of an hour as Markus patiently signed every book that was presented to him by fans young and not-so, after his session at Mountain Echoes, the literary and cultural festival of Bhutan held in August. And I ended up chatting to Markus’s lovely wife, Mika. It is from her that I learnt about the kids and the dogs and the cats at home, about Markus’s little writing getaway outside of Sydney and about how the couple realised that The Book Thief was becoming BIG when he was invited to a morning talk show in America. And of course about the family’s Harry Potter obsession!
So, armed with all my knowledge of the Zusak clan, I decided to start on a quirky note. Here goes!
MARKUS, THE BOOK THIEF
Hi Markus, have you ever stolen a book?
(Laughs out loud) Yeah, yeah… plenty! From my school library. I didn’t have a library card, so I think I stole a few books. I feel bad about it, actually. I have also picked up books on the road… once at a writers’ festival, there were so many people lined up that I just took a book… I thought I’ll pay later but I forgot! So yeah, I’ve stolen a few books in my time. Also, many people have stolen books from me... they borrow and they never give it back! So that’s how it works sometimes… what goes around comes around.
So you are a big reader? And a big book buyer?
Oh we’ve got so many books at home, more than we can read in a lifetime! Sometimes you buy books because it just looks so good (grins), you know. And three months later you still haven’t read it. That’s someone doing a good job on the cover.
Well, of course I’m a big reader, but when I’m writing I don’t read too much. Because I just can’t afford the distraction.
But you’ve been writing your next book for 12 years now!
I know! So I’ve not read much these 12 years (laughs). I’ve been rereading some books. And even in 12 years, you have fallow periods, when you are not writing… so that’s when I’ll do my reading. If it’s not going well or you have summer holidays, you’re not going to get much writing done (because the kids are home).
THE READER AND THE WRITER
What kind of books were you reading growing up?
I realise now that I grew up on a lot of American books. Because that’s what was coming into Australia at the time. We had every Dr. Seuss book (smiles) and that was great! And, of course, a lot of smaller Australian books… we always had a lot of books in our house. My mum and dad, because they couldn’t speak English when they came to Australia [his mother Elisabeth came from Germany and father Helmut from Austria], it was important for them that we — my brother, my two sisters and I — be good English speakers. So we always got a lot of books. It was an important part of growing up. I was the one who probably liked books the most. I loved stories....
You knew early on that you’d be a writer?
I decided I wanted to be a writer from the time I was 16. I don’t know, a few things happened… I read a book called Taming the Star Runner (by S.E. Hinton) where the main character was a writer, and I thought, ‘Ah, I’d love to do that!’ I think what happened when I read books was I wanted to be the characters…. So if a character dressed a certain way I’d want to dress that way… I wanted to really live inside books. And I think that’s a sure sign that you want to be a writer. You know, if you start to cut your hair the same way as a character in a book (laughs)….
Okay, that’s serious obsession!
Yeah, yeah. But that’s what you have to have, because there’s no point being a writer if you just kind of want to be a writer. You have to want to be one with every part of yourself. Otherwise you almost don’t deserve it.
What are you reading right now?
I’ll often be reading three or four books at once. Now I am rereading The Odyssey by Homer. It’s important to the book I’m working on. And a book called Flush, which is by Virginia Woolf... and a book about boxing.
THE POTTERHEADS
What kind of books are you giving the kids (daughter Kitty is 11 and son Noah is 7)?
For Christmas I’ll probably buy my daughter a book that I loved when I was 12 — Island of the Blue Dolphins (by Scott O’Dell). Great book. We read so many children’s books. We read the whole Harry Potter, all seven books. We all sat down and we wouldn’t read unless all of us were there. Sometimes my daughter’s friends would be with us... so it was a great communal thing.
And you’re a Ravenclaw...
(Laughs out loud and looks really surprised) How did you know that?! Well, it’s a familial obsession. It’s been such a joy to read it as a family. Then we did the quiz (to get sorted into Hogwarts houses) and we’ve got two Gryffindors (Mika and Kitty) and two Ravenclaws (Markus and Noah).
But I think it classifies as an obsession when you do the quiz for your pets. Much to our surprise, one of our cats is not a Slytherin!
So, what characteristics do you think make you a Ravenclaw?
‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’ — that is the slogan of Ravenclaw (smiles). Ravenclaws, as far as I am aware, they’re supposed to be witty, and intelligent, and loyal. And Luna Lovegood is probably one of our favourite characters and she’s a Ravenclaw.
Have you met J.K. Rowling?
No, but I was at an awards dinner in England and she was sitting right there (points to a few feet away)! I could have just gone over and said ‘hello’. But I didn’t... well, because while I am so happy for people to come and talk to me, and I’m sure she’d be the same, but I just thought, let her have her dinner in peace and not have someone accost her. But for all I know she would have liked that... it was so long ago, it was probably in 2008. If it was now, maybe I would. Maybe I’d have the confidence now... I might have grown up a bit (grins).
What’s your Patronus?
Ahhhhh... We have talked about this (within the family). It’s probably either a dog — a big wolfish kind of dog — or it’s the kookaburra. It’s a bird in Australia, it’s also my favourite animal. Because it’s an animal with a great attitude. It looks at you and if you look back at it, it just looks at you as if to say, ‘What’re you looking at?’ (laughs)... which isn’t necessarily my nature, but I love that animal for it.
THE BOOK THAT MEANS ‘EVERYTHING’
While you were writing, did you imagine The Book Thief would become this big?
No, I imagined it would be my least successful book! I never dreamed... I knew it was the best I could do, I knew it was an ambitious book. I knew that no one could accuse it of not having many ideas (smiles). Whether it’s good or not, that’s a matter of opinion. But I knew that it was a real attempt at something special, and I think sometimes you have to be happy with that, satisfied with that.
Really, least successful?!
It shows you how much I know about the reader… and publishing and what books sell (grins)! I thought it would sink without a trace. I imagined somebody trying to recommend it to their friend and the friend says, ‘Well, what’s it about?’ What do you say? ‘It’s set in Nazi Germany, it’s narrated by Death, nearly everybody dies, and it’s 590 pages long... you’ll love it.’ I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read it!
But, you know, as soon as I realised that nobody was going to read it, every decision that was a risk, I took. I followed my vision completely. And I think that’s why it struck a chord with people.
I’ve written five books. I’ve written four books that really mean something to me and one book that means everything to me and that book is The Book Thief.
How did the idea come to you?
Well, I started to write a book about the lives of my parents at that time (during World War II) but it’s totally fictional as well. The little girl in The Book Thief is not my mum. She actually has the same name as my mum, Leisel, short for Elisabeth, but it ceases to be my mum when Leisel’s brother dies and she has to bury him in the snow. That is a story of a friend of my mum’s. And characters, you know, begin to have a life of their own and you are building on it all the time.
The story that made me want to write this book was my mum being six or seven years old and running to the main street of her town in Germany, outside of Munich. It was 1943, I think. She thought all the noise was animals being herded down the street but it was people, it was Jewish people being taken to a concentration camp. And there was an old man who couldn’t keep up and it took a teenage boy to run into his house and get a piece of bread and give it to this emaciated starving man. And this man who hadn’t probably eaten for days, fell to his hands and knees, grabbed the boy by his ankles and cried into his feet, thanking him for giving him the bread.
Then a soldier came and ripped the bread away, threw it away and he whipped the man for taking the bread and he chased the boy and he whipped him for giving him a piece of bread. And what you had in that story was pure beauty, which is the boy and the old man and their interaction, and pure destruction, which is the soldier. In that is all of us.
Within that is humans and that’s what made me want to write the book. I thought I’ll turn it into a 100-page novella… a really short book. And then, as you know, it got a bit out of control, it turned into a 590-page book (smiles).
‘IT’S THEIR FILM’
The book was made into a film of the same name in 2013. I understand you’re not quite happy with how it turned out?
The thing is, movie people are different. And the great thing with books is that no one expects to make money from a book. Whereas people want to make money from movies. It doesn’t cost much to make a book either...with movies there’s always someone concerned about the money, about who’s going to watch it.
And they really wanted little kids to watch the movie, so in a lot of ways it was a much toned-down version of the book. Certain decisions were made and they weren’t my decisions…. I’m happy to say now that it was their movie, but it is my book. And I’m glad for that to be the case because, you know, my heart’s in that book, my fight’s in that book and my soul is in that book and hopefully theirs is in the film. But, it’s quite funny, people just assume the movie is mine. When your old football coach sees you after 25 years and says, ‘Ah, I saw your movie,’ you don’t say, ‘Well, technically it’s not my movie, it’s my book….’ You just say, ‘Thanks Bill.’ And you move on. Because I’m a writer of books and books are my first love.
THE NEXT ONE
Moving on, tell us about your next book. You’ve been writing it for 12 years now?
Yeah, my new book has taken 12 years to write and I’ve had the idea for 20 years… it’s about a boy who’s building a bridge. The book is called Bridge of Clay. The boy’s name is Clay and he’s got four brothers. He’s living on a country property and his mum isn’t around anymore…. His dad comes home for the first time in quite a few years... and asks if one of the brothers might build a bridge with him on this property for when the river floods. And Clay is the one who decides to do it. He wants to make one perfect thing in his life, he wants to make one miracle, to transcend humanness and atone for his own sins. I think the idea is that when the river floods, he wants to be able to walk across the top of the water. And the bridge is made of him. It’s not just made of stone and arches and wood, it’s made of ‘Clay’ himself. They say clay can be moulded into anything but it needs fire to set it… so when he walks across the bridge it’s sunrise and there’s fire on the water because of the reflection of the sun. Will he sink into the water because the bridge hasn’t survived or will he be able to walk across? And I think it’s just that question of do we all have one miracle in us.
I think the answer is yes. But we never get the miracle how we think we’re gonna get it.... I’m nearly finished, hopefully.
Let’s finish by talking about your two dogs...
They’re called Ruben and Archer. Ruben is the dark one and Archer is the blonde one. I didn’t want to get a dog at first but there’s my book Fighting Ruben Wolfe and my wife found this dog called Ruben. He was already called Ruben and she said, ‘See you’re meant to be together’. So we didn’t change the name. I thought it’s a bit egocentric to name a dog after a character in your book but then you just think, ‘Who cares!’ And Archer, we took him in because he was sick and we thought it would be good luck because the characters in the new book live on Archer Street. That was about five years ago... but as soon as we got him nothing but bad things happened (laughs out loud)!
— Samhita Chakraborty
I loved The Book Thief because....
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