memoir | the ocean frozen

I never would have read Banana Girl if a friend hadn’t lent it to me. I almost never read memoirs, especially of people I’ve never heard of.

Michele Lee is a Melbourne-based playwright, about to embark on a six-month trip to Laos. Australian-born but the daughter of Hmong immigrants, Michele is a self-proclaimed ‘banana’.

Michele has a lot of sex, mostly of the detached, non-relationship kind. She details her meetings with guys like Mr Mercedes, who she has afternoon sex with in buildings he manages. She’s had a handful of serious relationships, the stories of their beginnings and endings floating through her tales of the present. Michele seems to still be friends with all of them to a certain degree, the implication being that once they break up she’s never so devastated that she can’t stay in touch. Yet, her memoir begins with her dalliance with New Zealander Jackie Winchester. Michele visits him in New Zealand and seems to fall for him rather quickly and completely. But it’s complicated.

All of Michele’s ex-boyfriends are given pseudonymic nicknames (I’m assuming to protect their identities while also being knowingly cutesy). Among them is the Cub (a much younger casual liaison), Husband (ex-serious-boyfriend, who she still works with, as well as being neighbours and friends), and Four Track (her second boyfriend from when she lived in Canberra).

I was a bit disappointed at the level of introspection. Deep down Michele knows that she often handles her significant relationships (including friendships) poorly, the conversations she includes that point the finger at her self-centred behaviour show that. She has a conversation with the Cub about her relationship history. Michele has just deleted the Backpacker (an ex living in London) from Facebook. The Cub says, ‘Don’t you think that’s, well, passive? Passive-aggressive?’ and, ‘So why would you delete him?’ She has no real response, just ‘But I was aiming for being assertive’ (despite being well aware that the Backpacker doesn’t know he’s been deleted) and, ‘I suppose I could just email the Backpacker and ask him what’s going on.’ (She hasn’t even tried the direct approach).

Michele also writes very funny imaginary letters from her fifteen year-old self; essentially the voice of her conscience, the voice of judgement – ‘You have sex with strange guys in empty buildings. What if he’s a rapist?’ Michele, through young Michele, knows the accusations that her friends and family are probably telepathically, if not actually, bombarding her with. So when accused, why doesn’t she defend herself. Because she has no idea why she behaves the way she does?

It would’ve been interesting to know why Michele thought she pursued all of these casual sexual relationships. Yes, it’s clear she enjoys sex but that’s not a real reason to have sex with three different guys in a week. I’m curious about the why. It seems strange, and possibly completely unfair, to be writing this about a real person, someone living right now. Maybe it’s the conversational tone, like a friend is telling you secrets, but sometimes you just want to shake said friend, to get them out of themselves, to get them to question their actions. And then other times you just sit and nod, allowing them to have their moment of self-pity, unencumbered by self-doubt or judgement.

I’m focusing too much on the sex, of which there is undoubtedly much. There’s also a bit thrown in about a previous trip to Laos. And the humorous side to the pain of being an artist – a sex farce play Michele writes that reviewers just don’t get, being a young playwright but only actually seeing plays that she can scrounge free tickets to. It was cool to read about Melbourne. Normally I like to read about people and places that have nothing to do with my own life but, living in Melbourne myself, it was enjoyable and kind of soothing to read about a life that has some sort of kinship with my own.

On the whole, Banana Girl is breezy and witty, yet I found it quite melancholy. The story of Michele in year eight feeling inadequate because her best friend, Pretty Polly, had lost her virginity the year before, leading to her downing kirsch on a ‘Friday night under the willow trees in Woden to try to accelerate [her] loss of virginity’ left me quite forlorn.

Michele Lee is undoubtedly funny and genuine. But despite the confessional style of the stories she tells (she bares the facts of her life for all to see) there’s a distance there. I hope she writes more books (I’m not really one for plays) because I can see her growing more comfortable and letting herself truly get close to her material.

Poe Ballantine’s memoir takes up his life story having recently returned from Mexico with his young Mexican girlfriend, Cristina. The two settle in the small town of Chadron, Nebraska (where Poe lived once before during his itinerant years) and get married. Before long they have a son, Tom. Tom is labelled as autistic, exhibiting slow verbal development, repetitive and ritual behaviours, and advanced facility with numbers and numerical concepts.

Before long, there’s trouble in Poe’s marriage, he and Cristina are fighting constantly. Poe wants to believe that their problems are caused by Cristina coming to terms with living in the US – having to learn English (understanding jokes is the last thing you learn in another language, which is especially hard on Ballantine, a funny man with a wife who couldn’t understand that he was funny), and making minimum wage as a cleaner despite having been a dentist in Mexico. Once she acclimatises they’ll be happy, or so Poe tells himself. But Cristina came to America with Ballantine imagining that all Americans are rich and successful. Poe, a writer and wanderer, was poor, and as he tells it, a disappointment to Cristina.

Then Poe’s neighbour Steven Haataja (pronounced Hah-de-ya) goes missing. Did he skip town? Commit suicide? Was he murdered? Ninety-five days later his body is discovered on a property near the university campus, burned beyond recognition, tied to a tree. At the time Ballantine was trying, and failing, to come up with an idea for his next book. Then it struck him, he knows everyone in Chadron, he knew Steven, he should write about Steve’s disappearance. I guess a part of every writer wants their very own In Cold Blood moment. So the strange disappearance of Steven Haataja ostensibly serves as the plot of Love & Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere. But I wouldn’t read Poe Ballantine’s book if you’re looking to find out exactly what happened to Steve, a tragically curious death that will likely remain a mystery. Much of Poe’s investigation involves navigating police incompetence, and local characters’ endless speculation based on the paltry facts available. But it remains a fascinating portrait of a town in crisis.

His memoir is just as much about his quest to save his marriage while raising a supposedly autistic child. Poe doesn’t really believe Tom is autistic, just a unique, curious, late bloomer. He questions whether there is anything to be gained by thinking that a child like Tom is autistic? He will always be different, and yet surely some people are different without having a condition. Ballantine takes comfort in stories of friends and acquaintances in which someone’s child was originally diagnosed autistic by alarmist medical professionals because he had, for instance, ‘delayed language, a high IQ, and would eat nothing but lentils’ and then nothing came of it.

Love & Terror is also a beautiful portrait of quirky, small town life. For someone who has spent much of his life resisting a permanent home or family Poe Ballantine’s love for his fellow townspeople and his generous heart are apparent on every page. Ballantine’s writing has an exceptional wit and soulfulness. He writes accessible, genuine poetry. Poe writes, to Cristina ‘My past was so wild it appeared to have been lived by Peter Pan sniffing airplane glue.’ If that line doesn’t bring a smile to your face then perhaps Love & Terror isn’t for you. It’s a quiet and understated book. Even the most passionate fights between Poe and Cristina are written without histrionics, without ego.

After reading Ballantine’s memoir for a bit I got the impression he could write about nothing more than buying groceries and it would somehow be funny, irreverent and touching. It is Poe Ballantine’s writing that makes Love &Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere so special. It’s just a pleasure to spend time in his sincere, thoughtful and self-deprecating company.