My Speech at the Book Launch of Nikki vs Jess

I’m really glad to see you all here today to celebrate the launch of my latest novel, Nikki vs Jess, United Against the World. This book is about friendship and so it’s very important to me to celebrate this moment with my friends. I wouldn’t be standing here now, if it wasn’t for you.

I want to specifically mention – and thank – my wonderful friend, Peter Busby. I wrote my first novel in 1984, longhand, because I didn’t have a computer. But Peter deciphered my scrawl, numerous times, and typed up my various manuscript drafts on the computer he had at work. What a great friend he is, and always has been. Peter, I’m forever in your debt.

I also want to specifically mention my friend Julie Gillespie. I have dedicated Nikki vs Jess to her – frankly, it was the least I could do. For without her, there would be no Nikki. I met Julie when she was 17 and doing a pre-apprenticeship course, and I was working as the Women’s Trade and Technology Officer at Box Hill TAFE. I have based most of Nikki’s story on Julie’s own life as an adopted kid and finding her “real” mother, and as a motor mechanic apprentice. It’s Julie’s voice that I heard in my head for Nikki… although minus the numerous expletives!

Julie and I have been friends ever since. Strange, really, given that we’re chalk and cheese. It’s our unusual friendship which provided me with the inspiration to write a book about a friendship between two very different people. I’ll read a bit out of “Nikki vs Jess” to show you what I’m talking about.

I should mention that the story is told in alternating chapters, with the narrator changing between Nikki and Jess. In this particular excerpt, the narrator is Jess.

PAGES 8 – 9

I wanted to write a book in which difference is valued, one that celebrates people who don’t fit into the norm and who are surprising. St Andrews is a place of wonderful, different, surprising people! When I met Jamie Frankenberg as a young teenager at St Andrews Stock Feed, I never expected that he would turn out to be the most impressive creator of metal sculptures! Conversely, I was absolutely staggered to discover that Pat Reynolds went to the same obscenely exclusive, private girls’ school in Malvern that I did.

There is the notion that we live in a binary world, a world determined by a choice of two narrowly-defined options. Vote for one of the two major political parties. Answer yes, or no, to a life-changing issue for Indigenous Australians in the Referendum. Are you a winner, or are you a loser in this competitive game of life? Do you feel that you’re a square peg in a round hole?

Each of my characters, Nikki and Jess, feels that she is a square peg in a round hole because neither simply fits where society expects her to fit. It’s 1989 and women are expected to follow a prescribed path. Women do jobs appropriate to their gender, and of course all women want to get married and have children. But Nikki and Jess are different to the norm, and each wants to tread her own unconventional path. But it’s not easy.

In this passage I’m going to read to you, Nikki has just been attacked by a group of male motor mech apprentices at Trade School, who are furious that a girl has dared enter their exclusive boys’ domain. This excerpt is narrated by Nikki.

PAGE 41

Nikki vs Jess is ultimately a celebration of friendship. My own friends are enormously important to me and I’m extremely grateful to have such wonderful people in my life. Today I particularly thank friends and family who helped me get this event together – Julie, Sue, Rosie, Robyn, Geoff, Jim, Deb, Maurice, Shan and ESPECIALLY the sublime Lisa.

Last but not least, I thank each and every one of you for coming to the launch of my latest book. It means so much to me to have you all here, to share this proud moment with me. So, now, without further ado, I declare that Nikki vs Jess is officially launched!!!