Why there needs to be more women’s fiction
Jenni Ogden, 68, is the author of Fractured Minds and Trouble In Mind and her first novel, A Drop In The Ocean, was published this May. She lives on Great Barrier Island in New Zealand.
It is a mystery why publishers prefer to publish books about young women when women over 45 (or 60, or 70) read more books than any other group! In the US, for example, there are 39 million baby boomer women aged between 45 and 65 years old, their estimated spending power equals $1 trillion, and many are avid readers who have the time and money to indulge their passions. Australia and New Zealand, relatively speaking, will have even more passionate readers in this wiser and freer age group, given the fact that in both countries we pitch well above our weight when it comes to reading (and writing) books.
At the rich age of 68, I am an eclectic reader of non-fiction as well as fiction, but if I had to choose my favourite fiction ‘genre’ it would be women’s ‘bookclub’ fiction – stories that touch on thought-provoking topics – and especially stories featuring a strong older woman protagonist who dismantles age stereotypes. By this I mean that she is fully engaged in life (or becomes so in the story!), and follows her passions, including developing old relationships in new ways or perhaps discovering that romantic love is always a possibility. Books about older people finding love tend not to find favour with the same publishers who have failed to catch on to the massive numbers of passionate readers out there, women and men, who are over 50, over 60, over 70, and yes, of course, over 80! For many people in their later years whose minds are active but whose bodies are not as able as they once were, reading is their main window to the changing world. And most readers love reading novels that include, as major characters, some people in their own broad age group. So for me it feels right to imagine stories about people who continue to expand their horizons as they age.
In my novel A Drop in the Ocean my central character, London-born Anna Fergusson, is 49. We know this is young, but Anna doesn’t, and when the funding for her Huntington’s disease research lab at a prestigious Boston university is pulled unexpectedly, she finally faces her truth: she’s almost reached the half-century mark, she’s single, virtually friendless, and worse, her research has been sub-par for years. With no jobs readily available, Anna takes a leap and agrees to spend a year monitoring a remote campsite on Turtle Island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. What could be better for an introvert with shattered self-esteem than a quiet year in paradise? As she settles in, Anna opens her heart for the first time in decades—to new challenges, to new friendships, even to a new love with Tom, the charming, younger turtle tagger she sometimes assists. But opening one’s heart leaves one vulnerable, and Anna comes to realise that love is as fragile as happiness, and that both are a choice.
***
In this extract from Chapter 14, Anna and Tom, the laid-back turtle researcher (ten years her junior), have gone to another remote coral cay to count turtle hatchlings. Collette, the snotty university professor who arrived unexpectedly to check up on Tom’s research has joined them, much to Anna’s annoyance (especially as Collette looks like a young Elizabeth Taylor). Anna has been learning to snorkel but her confidence in the water is still shaky, so she stays put on the beach when Tom and Collette head off for a dive. Read on to discover what happened next!
The dinghy was speeding back over the lagoon when I got back to our camp. They’d been gone only forty-five minutes. Tom leapt out of the boat and dragged it into the shallows, shouting to me as he did so.
“Anna, get your wetsuit on, quickly. There’s a Queensland grouper out there. You’ve got to see it. It might be gone tomorrow and you won’t get another chance; they’re bloody rare around here. We’ll just make it before the tide’s too low.”
I stood still, just for a moment, poised on the verge of crying off. Then I saw Collette smirking in the boat. Within minutes I was back with my wetsuit half on, clutching my flippers in one hand and my mask and snorkel in the other. Tom stuck out his hand and steadied me as I clambered into the boat, then he pushed it into the deeper water, vaulted in, and we were off. I looked down as we crossed the reef edge, my heart in my mouth. It was only minutes before Tom cut the motor and heaved an anchor overboard. In the sudden silence I looked at him as the dinghy bobbed gently on the small swell.
“You’ll need a weight belt,” Tom said, maneuvering the thing around my waist. “Get your flippers on and you can lower yourself over the side, feet first.”
He was all efficiency and I was all a liquid mess.
“You stay here, Collette, in case we drift and you have to come and get us.” His tone made it clear that Collette had no option.
“Are you certified, Anna?” said Collette.
“Not that I know of,” said I.
Tom snorted. “We’re not using a tank. She doesn’t need to be certified, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. This is university equipment.”
Tom ignored her and pulled the weight belt tight. “Okay?”
“Won’t I sink?”
“That’s the idea. It will make it easier to dive down. I’ll be beside you; I promise you will be fine. Wait ’til you see this beauty.” He was as excited as a small boy.
“What is it we’re looking for again?”
“You’ll see it. Now over you go.”
I held my breath, slipped off the side and sank below the surface. I could feel the panic in my chest, but then I was up again and Tom was beside me, helping me with my mask and snorkel. He winked at me, and then pulled his on and flippered off. I stuck my head under and the underwater world opened up in all its glory.
We swam away from the boat, side by side, and I concentrated on breathing normally and looking at the fish swimming in their myriads below us. The sea bottom seemed a long way down but the water was crystal clear and I could see a large blue starfish on a patch of white sand between the coral outcrops. I felt Tom take my hand. We must have swum out of the reach of Collette’s beady little eyes.
Something strange was happening—a stillness in the water. Then I realized that the fish had disappeared. We were swimming alone. Spooked, I pulled back and Tom stopped and stuck his head out of the water. I followed suit, flapping rapidly in my effort to stay vertical and in one place. I hadn’t quite mastered treading water with flippers on. I looked around and saw our boat far, far away. How could we have come such a distance? I tried to cover my panic. Tom had removed his snorkel and was saying something.
I took my snorkel mouthpiece out and instantly got a mouthful of water, which made me flap even harder. I was about to sink. Then I felt Tom’s arm around me, holding me steady.
“Take it easy. Tip the water out of your snorkel and put it back in,” he said.
I managed that and breathed again.
“I’m going to take you over to a big bommie and on top of it is a massive fish. We won’t go too close, but it won’t take any notice of us so don’t freak out. The other fish don’t like it. That’s why the sea around it is empty.” Tom had sunk back into the water and I had no option but to follow him. What I wanted to do was to flipper as fast as possible the other way, back to the boat.
Tom was pointing ahead and I peered through the fish-free, shimmering water to a large dark coral outcrop rearing up from the deep: the bommie. It must have been twenty meters or more high. Unlike every other bommie I had seen it had no fish darting in and out around it. Tom was hanging in the water and I could feel him fizzing. He jabbed his finger towards the bommie again and I nodded. What was I meant to be seeing? He was pulling me along again, and as we got closer, the top of the bommie became a giant fish. A great brown ugly fish just sitting there, his enormous mouth open. My heart was thundering, and I started to turn away, flee as far away as I could get. But Tom held firmly to my hand and pulled me back. He turned his head and made the okay sign with his free hand. My heart slowed down a little and I forced myself to give him the okay sign back. Together we floated just below the surface, and I gradually calmed down. The monster hovered there above the bommie, glaring at the world. It looked at least three meters long, and it would take two long-limbed men to embrace it around its middle. Not that that would ever happen. Even a couple of Aussie blokes wouldn’t be that crazy. Its repulsive, drooping, wide mouth opened wider, and my heart rate accelerated again. If it sucked inwards, I could disappear right down its slimy throat.
Tom looked at me and I could see him grinning around his snorkel. He made a diving motion with his hand and raised his eyebrows above his mask.
I shook my head desperately.
He shook his head back and jabbed himself in the chest and made the diving motion again, and then the okay sign.
I breathed through my snorkel and returned the okay sign. Tom released my hand and swift as an arrow dove down and swam towards the bommie. My heart was still thumping but it was definitely in my mouth now. I tried to stay in one place, concentrating on keeping my snorkel end free of the waves, which had become choppier, and conscious of my weight belt holding my body below the surface. I knew if the monster went for Tom I’d never get back to the boat by myself.
Tom had surfaced again, far too close to the side of the fish. Now I could see him diving and swimming just above it. Men are so mindlessly stupid.
Then it moved. A giant wriggle. Its great mouth shut and opened again. I could feel the force of the water pushing out to where I floated, twenty meters away. It could have me in a heartbeat. I held myself there with phenomenal courage and looked for Tom. He had scuttled away bloody fast and was back at the surface. He made one last dive down to the monster and skimmed alongside it, then continued towards me. I waited for the monster to lunge after him.
I felt like a pro as we flippered away from the fish-free zone and back into the friendly bustle of the healthy reef. Even the sleek shape of a small white-tipped reef shark minding its own business a few meters below us caused only a brief palpitation. Within minutes we were back at the boat and Tom was shoving my butt from below as I heaved myself over the side. Even Collette seemed nicer, leaning over and grabbing my shoulders to haul me in. As we sped back to Lost Cay, weaving in and out of bits of coral piercing the rapidly receding waters over the reef flats, I sat in the middle of the boat and grinned at Tom. Wow was all that I could think. Wow.
*****
To find out more about Jenni Ogden and her work, please visit her website here.
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