Greta and Valdin

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Greta and Valdinis a complete world. I was totally captivated. It is warm and funny, inventive and charming, with a genuine and earned tenderness at its heart.' —Kate Duignan, author of The New Shipsand Breakwater Speaking of, “ An Open Letter to the Internet“ is a personal essay that contributed most to Hobart editor Elizabeth Ellen’s infamy. She describes a tension many writers fall into, the mode of ‘essayist’ overshadowing their fiction and/or poetry aspirations. Often the best essay writers fall into the form; despite Ellen’s efforts to evade non-fiction she is spurred on by the necessity to comment, providing a view she can’t see anyone else doing. In her Open Letter, she scrutinised allegationsagainst novelist Tao Lin by an ex-girlfriend he dated in her teens, when he was in his early twenties; Ellen refusedto accept the all-too-common mode of online degradation, and wrote, “[i]f this is anyone’s idea of gaining female empowerment, count me out. If celebrating the ruining of another person’s life is cause for celebration, I don’t want any part of it.”

Just like Greta, I “know someone who has an art exhibition coming up,” dislike the employees at Unity Books, and frequent Xi’an Food Bar Greta & Valdin is hilarious, touching and hotly sublime. The kind of novel that simultaneously makes me wish I were funnier and absolves me from the need to try—I’ll never be as funny as Rebecca K Reilly (and that’s OK).” —Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea Yes, by the end of this funny, smart, tangled web of family and romantic relationships you really can't help but root for everyone involved. Rebecca K. Reilly, you have a new fan. Gallic Books have this whole Francophile thing going on and also have an eclectic mix of a few Kiwi novels – by Chloe Lane, Fiona Kidman, Damien Wilkins. They also have a bookshop. Are they basically a boutique publisher? Reilly said: “It’s a very exciting opportunity for my book to gain a new readership outside my home country and not something I take lightly. I look forward to working with the team at Hutchinson Heinemann and seeing what happens next!”Greta & Valdinis fresh, funny, tangled and brilliant. I can’t wait for someone to make the sitcom so I can keep Reilly’s characters in my life.' —Hannah Tunnicliffe, Kete Books The publisher says: “Reilly’s exploration of love, family, queerness, migration, karaoke, the generational reverberations of colonialism and the disturbing realisation that your parents have a past will have readers falling in love with Greta, Valdin, and all of the Vladisavljevics.”

Gallic read the book and loved it. Then my agent sold it to them. Beyond that I don’t know how it happened!

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And these are much more serious moral transgressions than disagreeing with a critic engaging in un-PC ad hominem – ie, last year’s case of Nicholas Reid’s poorly thought-out gripe with essa may ranapiri’s identity and use of they/them pronouns. It's all rather messy. The original title of the novel was Vines (it was under this title that author Rebecca K. Reilly (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Wai) won the 2019 Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing). I can see why - the lives of the central characters and their families and lovers become fairly well tangled by the end of things, twining about each other in a well-watered but unpruned kind of way.

It's okay, Greta. Someone further on in the book will say some rather lovely things to you. Just hang in there! Greta and Valdin follows the titular siblings, Greta and Valdin Vladisavljevic (yes I did misspell that many times even with the book open beside me) as they navigate social and personal issues which are all too relatable for the audience in a world deeply familiar to New Zealand readers. Regardless, it doesn’t matter what identity grouping is boss because Perez’s gripe is really with literary output. He wrote, “Everything reads and sounds the same [. . .] You’ll never read a story about a pro-lifer or someone unvaccinated.” These topics aren’t the most marketable; a white man can see that too. It’s a shame this cultural trend prevents writers exploring broader topics but Perez is misplacing the blame. Neither Ellen or Perez are the first to complain of this homogeneity. Sit down, actually write and more importantly stop letting your anger overshadow the work; as Meghan Daum has argued, it’s not even “the marketplace that’s ruining literature. It’s the literary citizens themselves.”

Messy and Relatable: A Review of Greta & Valdin

Literature is a hard game. It’s hard to write, it’s hard to get published. What keeps you going as a writer? Simon waves me over into the meeting room and I close the door as gently as I can. I wish this potential firing wasn't taking place in a glass room, but I suppose that's late-stage capitalism for you... At the moment, for personal reasons, I don't like reading things about people being in love with each other.' —Valdin

In addition to the New Zealand setting (and a brief stint in Argentina and Colombia), the narrative exists in the even more focused setting of the intriguing family dynamics of the Vladisavljevic clan, whose blend of Māori, Russian and Catalonian culture and all that comes with it is the distillation of New Zealand’s multicultural melting pot into its purest form. Everything reads and sounds the same…You’ll never read a story about a pro-lifer or someone unvaccinated” With Rebecca’s book, it had such an ebullient nature and was an utter joy to read. So funny and fun, and loving.The book follows the lives and loves of Greta and Valdin, alternating chapters between them as they try to navigate aforementioned crushes, and pining, but also worrying about their careers, and their relationships with other members of their family. To be honest, I didn't think I particularly liked either of them in the opening chapters but by the end I was cheering them both on as they try to find the stability, groundedness, and love that they both need to be happy. I have a jeweller friend who talks about the types of materials she likes to work with — primarily steel, copper and brass. She doesn’t use gold or precious stones. I think like that with words. I use the steel and copper and brass of language. They’re my materials and I love them and never tire of working with them. Greta & Valdin is fresh, funny, tangled and brilliant. I can’t wait for someone to make the sitcom so I can keep Reilly’s characters in my life.' —Hannah Tunnicliffe, Kete Books