You don’t get much blokey than my token Author Harvest bloke – a leopard loving, rhino revering, Tony Park
So Tony, tell me, is it scones and tea or some other homemade delight you have whipped up for me today?
Beer and biltong (dried beef or game meat. An acquired taste, but addictive once you’ve fallen)
(Ahh, gee, thanks, you shouldn’t have. I’ll have to pass and take your word for it! New Years resolution to lose weight, you know … )
At home…
My mum says garden gnomes make a house a home! Are you loud and proud in your love of garden gnomes at home, a closet gnomer or with a strict ‘no gnomes’ policy at your place?
My wife, Nicola, and I live in a two bedroom flat in Sydney for six months of the year, so no room for gnomes there – our flat is full of carved wooden giraffes, rhinos, elephants and other African creatures. In Africa we’re on the road a lot of the time, but also recently bought a holiday house in a game reserve. We have a leopard that loiters out the back of our house so a gnome wouldn’t last a night.
(I knew I was going to love this Harvest!)
What vegetable (or fruit) have you always wanted to grow at home?
I don’t eat enough of either, but I do like tomatoes fresh off the vine. (They do grow on vines, right?).
(Yes, Tony! Can’t believe this man knows the mating ritual of the rhino but not how a tomato grows.)
If I came to your home and looked in the refrigerator, what would I find?
In the flat in Sydney, not much. In the house in South Africa enough beer, wine and red meat to feed an army – our nearest supermarket is 40km away.
(Ha! Beer and wine – hold the meat – and you are talking my language!)
If you sorted your wardrobe by colour, what colour would stand out? (Ahh, do you sort your wardrobe by colour?!)
Green. We do wear a lot of safari clothes in Africa, not so much to blend into the bush, although you don’t want to be wearing bright red around an angry buffalo, (Oh, right, yes or course. Why didn’t I think of that?) but because it hides the dust. (Hmm, yes, hiding the dust would be my number one reason for not wearing red.)
What are you wearing now? (Be honest!)
Running shorts, T-shirt and runners. I’m in Sydney now and have just been for a run to the beach. This is the best thing about being back home in Sydney – the beach that is, not the running.
Whose home would you like to housesit and why?
Wilbur Smith’s so I could know how the other half lives.
(Nine books, Mr Park! You must be getting into the
swing of things by now. PS. You have THE best covers–stunning.)
Country curiosities…
We love a sunburnt country (slip, slop, slap and all that). What’s your ideal hat? Or are you a boots person?
I’m usually a green baseball cap person in Africa, but I also have the camouflage bush hat I wore when I served with the Army in Afghanistan back in 2002. It reminds me of how good it is to be home.
If you were a tree (or animal) what kind of tree (animal) would you be?
I identify strongly with the white rhino – pudgy, skinny legs, poor eyesight, but likeable and generally placid. Tree-wise my favourite is the African Leadwood which, like me, grows very tall.
(Hmmm — pudgy, skinny legs, poor eyesight, but likeable and generally placid!)
Now for the big question… Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because my resident leopard was after him.
About you…
Your turning point: when was that point in your life that you realized that being an author was no longer going to be just a dream but a reality and a career?
I was in Afghanistan with the army, in 2002, when I got an email from Pan Macmillan telling me my first book, Far Horizon, was going to be published. All I’d wanted to do with my life for as long as I could remember was write books and at that moment I knew I’d not only fulfilled a dream, but that this was all I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
(That’s a wonderful call story.)
What is the hardest part of writing for you?
I don’t find writing hard at all. I hate getting to the end of a book and saying goodbye to it. I also agonise when I submit it to the publishers and wait to hear back.
If someone was to write your biography, what do you think the title should be?
I like my life.
What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview? How would you answer that question?
Question: Are the sex scenes in your book based on real life experiences?
Answer: I wish.
(Well, having just read a particular scene in African Dawn I don’t think I will look at motor bikes in quite the same way again. I also now feel incredibly old … and inflexible!)
Fun stuff …
What does your protagonist think about you? Would he or she want to hang out with you, the author, his/her creator.
I don’t have a favourite of all the protagonists in all nine of my novels, but I like to think we would all get on famously over a couple of beers or red wines. They might even see a little bit of me in them, except for Sonja Kurtz, from The Delta, who is hot.
If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?
Robert Mugabe, tyrannical president of Zimbabwe. I’d hand over power to the opposition (who won it rightfully at the last election), resign from office and hand myself in to the international criminal court and plead for mercy for all of the crimes I committed in my more than 30 years of misrule. Hopefully I’d be locked away for the rest of my life.
(Beautifully put.)
I am almost too terrified to ask…. If I said to you, “Just entertain me for five minutes, I’m not going to talk,” what would you do?
Sing you some Elvis. I do like to sing and I love Karaoke, but the problem is I’m not good at it. You would not be entertained, unless you had ear plugs (my moves are sensational).
(Sensational moves with “pudgy, skinny legs”. You’re eyesight is obviously worse than you thought. I’m guessing I won’t be getting ‘All Shook Up’ any time soon.)
What food would you be?
Kudu steak, medium rare (it’s a big African antelope, and very tasty).
(You mean it was a big African antelope. Did I mention the no meat thing yet?)
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Kudu biltong.
(Perhaps I didn’t mention the vegetarian thing strongly enough!)
Name 5 uses for a stapler that has not staple pins.
(I can’t believe Tony didn’t answer this question. I mean, there must be a dozen or more uses for such a device while on an African safari.)
How weird are you out of ten – with 1 (not) to 10 (very).
8.5. I just bought a house in South Africa while tens of thousands of people are trying to leave. I love it there, and I love having a leopard out the back of my house. I just wish the lions would visit more often. Is that weird?
(Yes. You win!)
What a great sport. Thank you….
Leave a comment: Let’s tell Tony how a stapleless stapler might come in handy on African safari.
Tony’s website is quite something: www.tonypark.net
Blog: www.tonyparkblog.blogspot.com
African Dawn is the first Tony Park novel ‘we’ have picked up and, to be honest, when I looked at the first few introductory pages with its timeline, a family tree and a glossary, I said “Na-ah!” There is no way my friend is going to get past the first chapter. Don’t get me wrong, my reading partner loves a big story: a complex crime novel, a psychological thriller, a forensic mystery. But this story …?