I cannot remember ever being too worried about whether the stuff I wrote would be accepted for publication. More, it was a matter of writing enough so that if one or two pieces along the way suffered rejection it wouldn’t be too crucial. A working writer who wants to go on writing needs to be practical.

The two novels I wrote in the late 1980s have both more than served to keep the wolf from the door. Agnes the Sheep was the second of the two. Just before the blessed sheep came The Blue Lawn. For a number of years it appeared to me to be a wasted effort and destined to be one of those pieces that would be snuffed out through rejection.

I wrote the story of David and Theo against the backdrop of homosexual law reform in New Zealand, when it was a fairly tumultuous time, politically. The bigots were out in force, and the religiously fundamental and rightfully righteous were in their element. Hellfire, damnation, Sodom and Gomorrah…The whole works—including the downfall of Western civilization and the decay of family values, accompanied by an incipient plague of AIDS and an outbreak of paedophilia—were on the menu. Stupidly, I allowed myself into the thick of it.

As then-mayor of carrot-and-ski town Ohakune, I was not unused to chairing the occasional public meeting. Goes with the territory. I thought little of it when I was invited to chair a public meeting on the contentious subject of this particular law change. It was held in the town’s old courthouse. I got to sit up on the bench where the visiting judge would normally sit. It was as well that I was afforded some elevation. It was as well that a couple of the town’s constabulary were also in attendance. The place was packed. The holier than thou, armed with their Bibles, clustered in the front seats. Moderation did not prevail. Whenever a reasonable question was asked or a point raised, whenever a pro-reform view was expressed, one or more of the Bibled folk would begin to recite, quite loudly, from the Good Book. For all that, I did manage to exert a certain control over the proceedings. A good loud voice, coupled with the fact that I was lucky enough to be looking down on the assembled throng, certainly helped. It was indeed an experience.

It was also an experience that I was doomed to repeat at least twice more. The far more sensible local government leaders of nearby communities declined the honour of chairing similar meetings in their towns and, stupidly, maybe arrogantly, I agreed to step into the breach. The only condition I laid down was that there had to be a cop in attendance!

On the one hand it was a crucial issue. On the other hand, in the wider scheme of things pertaining to human existence, it can only be seen as exceptionally trivial. The repeal of manmade laws that had only been in existence in the Western world for little more than one century of man’s history. Particularly unfair and arbitrary laws, too, in that they had only ever applied to the male of the species. Women had never suffered their draconian effects—simply, it is said, because Queen Victoria could not believe that consenting females could ever get up to such fun and games with each other!

The Blue Lawn treats the subject of same-sex attraction in a muted fashion. There is no overt sex. No sexual acts are described, quite simply because they don’t happen, are not part of the story.