It was the kind of cold, crisp wintry day in Melbourne that characterises the setting of Katherine Firkin’s debut crime novel, Sticks and Stones, when we spoke. For someone who wrote about grisly murder and is a crime reporter for CBS (based in New York but currently back in Melbourne for a now-reduced book tour), she has an unexpectedly light demeanour.
Firkin, who was born and raised in Melbourne says of herself, “I wanted to write since I was a little kid. I always imagined I’d write women’s fiction, and I started a couple of manuscripts in my late teens/early twenties.” She adds with a self-effacing laugh, “thankfully I never inflicted them on anyone because they were terrible.”
She “gave up on [writing] and decided to focus on journalism,” starting her career as a sports reporter for Melbourne-based newspaper the Herald Sun. That took a left turn when she was “roped in” to covering the death and funeral of notorious underworld figure Carl Williams. However, she noted that “once I got into it, I started being interested in hard and breaking news, and covering crime cases”. The first major crime case she covered was the 2014 murder of Renae Lau, which Firkin describes, fairly, as “one of the most horrific murders in Melbourne.”
It makes sense that sitting in court and listening to the horrific list of charges while staring at the person who committed the acts would prompt most of us to ask what could possibly compel someone to do such a thing. In many ways, this question is the core which runs through Firkin’s book. In her own words, it’s “fascinating to sit and watch makes people tick, especially remembering when you can’t imagine behaving in that way.”
She elaborates, noting that often, the perpetrators of crimes are themselves victims; “the thing that repeatedly strikes you is now these offenders never just pop up overnight and decide to be evil. I’m not sympathising or condoning their behavior, but they usually had horrific abuse, trauma, violence, neglect in their childhood […] I think it’s important to look at what created this monster we’ve ended up with.”
Sticks and Stones certainly doesn’t excuse the actions of its killer, but it deftly portrays, through the inclusion of flashbacks, a cycle of neglect which has produced this outcome in a way that clearly shows a person who has slipped through the cracks. She notes that earlier versions of the flashbacks were more intense, but for the sake of believability, she was advised to alter them, despite the fact that “we see those outrageous and horrific stories all the time in court”. I comment that it came across to me very clearly that the killer was repeatedly let down by structures supposed to support them. Her passion for this point – and her compassion for people who are let down from the system – shines through in her response: “Personal responsibility and choices come into it, but so often offenders were neglected by one or both parents, then moved into a foster home, then displaced and moved on again […] then abused by someone […] and you think ‘if there was only that support in place that put them onto a different track so they don’t end up in the court room’.”
It makes sense that seeing these stories in the court room could eventually inspire a full novel. Firkin explains, “court reporting is interesting because you get two sides to the story – the offender and victim[…] You get to explore the past and the future, and why people have behaved in a particular way.” That worldview, too, infuses Sticks and Stones, which gives unusual insight into the minds of all its characters – the good and the bad. She notes, “I enjoy being able to push the limits of human behaviour to either end of the spectrum. Even some of my characters who aren’t the killer have behaviour that’s quite morally questionable, but you can push behaviour back and forth, because you know there’s some crime which most people aren’t capable of performing, we can test the limits. A lot of people are interested in the question of ‘would I?’”
While she’s obviously found a way to tease out those questions in her novel, I ask about the most significant divergence she experiences in writing as a reporter and as a novelist. She pauses. “There’s something very different about seeing your name on the front of your first novel than on the byline of a newspaper. When you write longer form, you do get a chance to put a lot more of yourself into it […] I feel as though I’ve exposed myself in ways I don’t when I’m working as a reporter.” She adds that the other major difference is the experience of sitting down “day after day and do the work, especially at the start when you don’t know if people are going to want to read what you’re working on, and to keep putting hours into something that may end up in the bin.” I understand completely – the rejection you feel as an author is personal. She agrees immediately. “You get a lot of criticism when you work in the media, and you get good at brushing it off…whereas when it’s your own novel, you feel far more that people don’t like you.”
But while Sticks and Stones is Firkin’s debut, it has the confident voice of a more established author, and Firkin comes across as someone who knows her craft well. When I ask what kind of books she reads to fuel that craft, Firkin immediately nominates Scandinavian crime. Certainly if you’ve ever read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you feel a certain similarity between the bleakness of the landscape, and even in the character of the detective who’s seen perhaps a bit too much and is struggling with the processes of his institution, while trying to actually do some good in the world. More than that, the setting, while clearly situated in Melbourne, does evoke that ambience. Firkin explains “if you know Melbourne at all, you get a good sense of the city.” Certainly, setting so much of the novel in and around Docklands (an area famous for being developed to be the next ‘trendy’ spot, but, due to a lack of supporting infrastructure, is a ghost town), evokes that bleak vibe. In Firkin’s words, “it’s very central but very isolated, and still underdeveloped, especially near the creek I reference. It’s definitely a creepy part of Melbourne to wander around.” But it’s more than simply one setting. Firkin nails the whole atmosphere. The storyline features several Australian Football League matches, which, as she says, “when it’s winter in Melbourne, […] it’s everywhere, even if you hate it.” That there is something about the idea of the whistles and cries rising up from a football game – especially as the light drains from the sky and the harsh, fluorescent lights illuminate the pitch and leave everything beyond it in darkness, that could be sinister.
The sun is shining against a backdrop of grey clouds as I hang up. Even that evokes the atmosphere of Sticks and Stones. Much like her book, my conversation with Firkin has left me thinking about the atmosphere of place and the moral nuance of people.
