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Author Helen Brown on grief and giving back

BOOKS
Helen Harvey

For author Helen Brown, “no” has been a beginning rather than an end – in fact, she reckons rejection is her best friend.

When Brown moved to Melbourne from New Plymouth 25 years ago, her search for a journalism job came up empty.

However, she credits that initial struggle with pushing her toward the literary career she enjoys today – admitting that without those early closed doors, she might never have pursued creative writing at all.

Best-selling author Helen Brown is back home in Taranaki to chat to her readers and put on a show for the residents of Jean Sandal Retirement Village. – SAM SCANNELL/TARANAKI DAILY NEWS

“I always think it’s helpful to talk about rejection because everyone gets rejected, and it’s so easy to accept that version of yourself, but it’s far better just to keep plodding on and staying authentic to who you are and something will come out the other end, with any luck.”

Which was what happened to Brown in Melbourne.

Brown, back in New Plymouth this week, said she had written a lot of columns for newspapers over the years and knew from the emails and letters she got from readers what worked.

“So I tried to put all of those things together in this book – Cleo.”

It was the story of how a cat helped her heal after son, Sam, died when he was 9 years old.

“Of course, no-one wanted to publish it, because it had a dead child in it,” Brown said.

“I remember all the rejection letters – they were letters because that book came out in 2010 — coming through the letterbox, and just getting very accustomed to that.”

Finally, she sent it to a Friday pitch run by publishers Allen & Unwin in Sydney.

“They ran this thing where if you send an idea for a book on a Friday, they’ll let you know on a Tuesday if they think it’s got legs.”

They took the book and Brown hoped it would see 5000 copies across Australia and New Zealand, she said.

It sold 2 million copies globally.

“Grief’s a universal theme and everyone tries to heal, you know?”

She still got emails and letters from around the world, including from places such as Russia and Ukraine, she said.

“A lot of it has been from readers and other people who have been through a lot in their lives, and I found by sharing those stories they gave me little bits of healing too.”

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Cleo ranked on the New York Times Best Sellers list and has been translated into 18 languages.

Since then, she had written a book about a cat called Jonah, named after late All Blacks star Jonah Lomu, who was “a fantastically demanding, ridiculous cat”, a children’s version of Cleo, and a story about Bono, a cat she fostered in New York.

Her latest book, Mickey, was about a cat she grew up with in New Plymouth in the 1960s.

Mickey was also the subject of the story she would be telling at Jean SandaI Retirement Village tomorrow night in a musical play.

“I’ve written a script, which is a distilled version of the book, and brought out the most dramatic parts of it, so it’s got an arc. And then we’ll just have fun, I hope.”

The money raised from the event would go towards colon cancer research.