The unbreakable connections made through crazy times: interview with Markus Zusak.

By Louise Sapphira.

 

Woven within Markus Zusak’s first memoir, Three Wild Dogs and the Truth is the exploration of the value of chaos compared to the veneer. Markus takes the readership on a crazy but also loving ride with the Zusak’s three family dogs, Reuben, Archer, and Frosty, including their two pet cats, Bijoux and Brutus. This a story about love, but also the need to be vigilant. These animals not only have distinct personalities, but also are ferocious creatures. I met with Markus, and we discussed his latest publication, and the hidden layer of truth in the narrative.

What led Markus to write the memoir and to share so generously with his readers? Markus says, ‘There’s always something tugging at you to begin writing something…and people have been telling me for the better part of the decade, “You’ve got to write a book about your dogs” … because they were a force of nature.’ The book is ‘a heartwarming rendition of family life and family life with animals.’ However, times with the animals were hard and sometimes testing. He says, ‘We’re all really good at veneers these days…We’re good at showing the best of ourselves.’ But Markus wanted to go deeper than that and added, ‘I wanted to show myself and my family and our animals, how it really was.’

Markus does not have a book until he has that first sentence. He discusses this in the context of the analogy of a volcano. ‘There are all these volcanoes…all these fires within them, but not the right one to set it all off.’ He adds, ‘I’m just waiting for the one match to go in’ which sets off the first sentence. The beginning of the memoir was initially coming from a much sadder point of view about the death of the dogs. But the first line actually takes a comedic tone. Markus says, ‘I got the first line from the third dog [Frosty] after we lost the other two.’ One particular day on the street, Markus had to confront Frosty, who was fighting him, and this resulted in the point of view of chaos.

In the memoir, Markus talks about how he draws on ‘stories within stories’ in his writing. We discussed some of these stories in Three Wild Dogs and the Truth. Markus was inspired by John Irving’s memoir, The Imaginary Girlfriend where Irving discusses the craft of writing. Markus says, ‘What I found with this book [Three Wild Dogs and the Truth] is that going through the lens of us getting our dogs and our life with our animals, it was also a way to talk quite naturally about the struggles of writing.’ Markus also referred to Irving’s book when writing The Book Thief and spoke about the attempt at writing The Book Thief in the form of a memoir, but in this case, one of the volcanos did not erupt.

Another story within the memoir is the exploration of family. Markus speaks about ‘the family you grow up with and the relationships you have with those people again through the lens of the animals that you’ve had.’ He discusses the day his father came over, and how in the middle of the night, Reuben confronted his father with ‘these two glowing eyes at the end of the hallway.’ In the memoir, Markus takes his father’s words:

His voice intensified, but getting quieter, the last two words a whisper. ‘Just glaring at me – like Lucifer.’

The memoir allowed Markus to talk about these stories and life growing up and becoming a writer. It created a door to his younger days. ‘There were books everywhere in our house, and even my Dad’s Reader’s Digest in the bathroom, and so there were just clues to what you could become.’ He adds, ‘I like that idea that the book is about one subject but there’s no facet of our lives that doesn’t interplay with other facets.’ The memoir was also a way to show ‘that we live our lives moving forward, but we’re always reaching back into the past…and we’re always drawing lines between…memory and the present and where we want to go.’

Another theme explored in the memoir is loyalty woven into the narrative about chaos. Markus says, ‘We all need a little chaos in our lives…because we know that’s where we’ll be tested.’ However, ‘In terms of loyalty, I couldn’t write a book about these dogs without that being there.’ He discusses the accident when the Zusak dogs bit the piano teacher, Lindi, at their home and the two stitches she needed. He adds, ‘She put a lot of faith in us as humans at that time…But [there was] also her sense of responsibility to other people.’ Markus draws on this experience and the process of crafting a story and says, ‘that sometimes the worst thing that could possibly happen is the best thing that can happen in a story.’

The memoir also explores the loss, and beauty that can coincide in people’s lives, including tragedy. Markus discusses how in this case it was about driving down a motorway to the vet clinic where Reuben is lying in the back of the car incredibly unwell, with his owner screaming at him not to die. He says, ‘It summed up our entire ten-year relationship.’ The veterinarian asked Markus if he wanted to say goodbye to Reuben. Markus lies down next to Reuben and remembers saying to him he is going to be okay. He says, ‘I just love the idea that there’s got to be dark and light in our lives, and in all of the intense experiences that were really hard for us to like.’

When discussing the exploration of the veneer in the memoir, Markus says, ‘I’m the owner of dangerous dogs, the plural, Reuben and Archer, because together they were gangsters, gunmen, soldiers, essentially a two-dog Mafia. They lived and frightened together.’ Markus also speaks about the other side of their stories. He says, ‘There’s nothing better than whistling your signature whistle, and your dog comes flying back to you…and you can feel the bristles of their fur against your leg.’ But the family was always vigilant with the dogs. People need to know, ‘We watched those dogs perennially with our children…I didn’t want the book to be flippant about this either.’ In the context of truth and the veneer, ‘There’s comedy, tragedy, beauty and love, life, light, dark, and loss, we have that in our lives. So, it should be in the stories we tell as well.’

Amongst these stories, the author also takes the reader on a life-affirming journey. Markus discusses the scenario of coming out of a movie and talking about all your favourite scenes with the person you saw the movie with. Markus wants to take you to those significant moments. ‘In this case, I want you to remember that intense moment of driving Reuben, when we thought, he was going to die, or that moment when we took him to be put down.’ He talks about the death of both Reuben and Archer. With Reuben, it was towards the end of 2019 when the bushfires started, with the hazy smoke in the air on this hot day. He remembers laying Reuben out on the floor in their home. Then there was Archer, whose death was quick. There was ‘…the glassiness of his eyes when he was gone and sort of at peace.’ Markus says, ‘When I’m describing these things in this book or any of my books, I just want them [the readers] to feel like they’re there with me… experiencing my world that I’m writing about with me and that we’re in it together.’

With movies you can see the characters ‘but I love books because I feel like I’ve become the characters.’ Markus speaks about the magic that happens when you feel you’re inside the world of the book. He says, ‘When I was fourteen, that was when that first happened to me, and I thought, that’s what I want to do with my life.’ It is now time to pick up a Zusak book and feel the magic of the pages.

 

Markus Zusak is the international bestselling author of six novels, including The MessengerBridge of Clay and The Book Thief – one of the most loved books of the twenty-first century and a New York Times bestseller for more than a decade. His work is translated into more than fifty languages, and has been awarded numerous honours around the world. Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is his first work of non-fiction.

(Read our book review of Markus Zusak’s memoir Three Wild Dogs and the Truth)


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