{"id":362315,"date":"2026-04-03T19:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362315\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T19:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:04:08","slug":"writer-elizabeth-knox-confronts-family-abuse-in-memoir-night-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362315\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer Elizabeth Knox confronts family abuse in memoir Night, Ma"},"content":{"rendered":"

But for her, the book is about achieving specific goals and reaching out to others. \u201cI set out to write about what it\u2019s like to have a family member be a victim of violence, and what it\u2019s like to have a family member who has motor neurone disease, because I think they\u2019re both quite lonely experiences.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2009, three calamities struck Knox. The middle child of three, Knox had to get her older sister, Jo, sectioned and hospitalised after she had a psychotic episode. Knox\u2019s brother-in-law, Duncan, died in Rarotonga, deliberately struck by a vehicle driven by a man who had argued with Duncan\u2019s friends. And Knox\u2019s mother, Heather, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), a degenerative neurological condition.<\/p>\n

The calamities kept coming. A friend died. The film adaptation of her breakthrough novel, The Vintner\u2019s Luck, was panned. Knox suffered a gastric bleed, her life saved by a blood transfusion. <\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s sewerage system collapsed, costing $30,000. Their cat broke his leg in three places and was then rejected and attacked by his brother and sister. It almost felt like a film montage, she says. <\/p>\n

So in 2015, with a writer\u2019s grant, she sat down to write a memoir about this three-and-a-half-year period of calamities. Little did she know it would take her 11 years on and off to complete, between her novel writing.<\/p>\n

As a memoirist, she had to write about herself, not just around herself. However, she isn\u2019t the self-disclosing sort. \u201cI had a bit of a breakdown about the same time I started trying to write the memoir, not coincidentally,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Knox started by writing about her mother when she became ill. Not yet diagnosed, she began crying intermittently, something she never used to do. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out to be part genuine distress, and also a symptom of MND,\u201d says Knox. \u201cShe\u2019d say, \u2018I\u2019m not really that upset\u2019, although she had good reason to be upset. <\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t write about the degree of my mother\u2019s worrying unless I wrote about what Mum was worried about. That meant I couldn\u2019t leave out my older sister\u2019s story. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo write about Mum, I had to write Jo.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"WriterWriter Elizabeth Knox’s published work includes novels for adults and teenagers, autobiographical novellas, and a collection of essays. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

There was a certain topic Knox had been circling in the memoir until she couldn\u2019t put it off any longer. \u201cI thought, \u2018Elizabeth, you\u2019re going to have to seize this thistle\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

Between the ages of 8 and 11, Knox was sexually abused by Jo, who is three years older. Few details are disclosed in her account, which reads almost as if it happened to someone else. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe book changes point-of-view to the third person in this part, so I could just get it written,\u201d she says. \u201cAlso, I don\u2019t want to upset the reader too much, so I minimise some things.\u201d <\/p>\n

As an adult, Jo experienced mental-health problems that included, during her psychotic crisis, delusions, paranoia and erratic behaviour. It was after things deteriorated badly that Knox had Jo sectioned for her own safety. <\/p>\n

Knox spoke to the crisis team, filled out the forms, and she and Fergus accompanied the crisis team to Jo\u2019s house. Jo was admitted to hospital. Knox would rather leave details of that day to her account in the memoir.<\/p>\n

Her sister is still alive, but Knox doesn\u2019t want to say anything more about that, either. \u201cBut the book took so long partly because I kept waiting for Jo\u2019s situation to change. Also, it was very difficult to get it right. It was the first time that I\u2019d really tried to make sense of my older sister.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite all that has happened, Knox has never not loved Jo. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how people end up not loving someone they did love, particularly from childhood,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cJo isn\u2019t a person you can blame for anything. Her brain architecture was just different. The things that form you can be good and bad, and as a presence in my life, Jo was both.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was kind of magical. She was fearless. She had this incredible imagination and that was a big part of my becoming a novelist.\u201d <\/p>\n

Knox always wanted to write. In 1983, she started an English Literature degree at Victoria University, then did Bill Manhire\u2019s Original Composition course. She met Barrowman when he was involved in publishing her first book, After Z-Hour, in 1987. <\/p>\n

Her fourth novel, The Vintner\u2019s Luck, about the emotional and physical relationship between a winemaker and an angel, won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and was longlisted for the UK\u2019s prestigious Orange Prize.<\/p>\n

Fast forward 24 years, and The Absolute Book was listed as one of the best science-fiction and fantasy books of 2021 by the New York Times. <\/p>\n

\"Knox,Knox, fourth from left, in Paris in 2007 for the Les Belles Etrangeres festival with a group of New Zealand writers, including Vincent O’Sullivan, Fia Siegel, Fiona Kidman, Dylan Horrocks, Alan Duff and Albert Wendt. Photo \/ Edouard Caupeil<\/p>\n

Far more comfortable with fiction, Knox considered abandoning her memoir many times, often feeling unable to work out how to talk adequately about certain things. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut my writers\u2019 group were instrumental in me finishing it, and in me believing that it could, and possibly should, be out in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were not just encouraging, but kind of evangelistically encouraging.\u201d <\/p>\n

Knox had hinted at abuse before. In 1998, she published the novella Tawa, a fictionalised account of the abuse her youngest sister Sara experienced (by someone outside the family). <\/p>\n

Nine years before that, Knox had published her thinly veiled autobiographical novella Paremata. \u201cThe abuse is very mildly represented there.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yes, Jo read Paremata. \u201cShe said, \u2018That never happened\u2019 and \u2018If you say you were upset, you\u2019re lying\u2019. She flashed from denial right to minimising. I thought, \u2018I\u2019ll leave it there\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

Paremata would have been the first time their parents heard about the abuse. Knox says she\u2019d rather leave what she has to say about that to her memoir. <\/p>\n

In Night, Ma, she writes that she doesn\u2019t know if the book is an apology, an excuse or tale-telling. An excuse for what? <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing sorry I wasn\u2019t able to do more for my older sister with her troubles,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t strong enough to do more, which is the excuse. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut tale-telling, and how someone gets treated when they tell on someone, is in there. I\u2019m tale-telling in a way because the families of people with mental illness deserve to be able to tell their stories. Their stories are legitimate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also have a really strong conviction that things in the book should be talked about. I want people whose loved ones have died by violence, the families of sufferers of motor neurone disease, and victims of familial sexual abuse, to feel less lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201cliterary gentleman\u201d who congratulated Knox on Paremata told her he\u2019d found the abuse \u201cstrangely titillating\u201d to read. \u201cThat comment threw me and reinforced the idea that this isn\u2019t something I can talk about or be listened to,\u201d says Knox. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut if people feel able to tell someone about abuse, then it\u2019s less likely to happen. Because parents might know what to look out for, and survivors might seek help earlier. Or to just understand, as [multiple rape survivor] Gisele Pelicot says, the shame has to change sides.\u201d <\/p>\n

Does she feel shame? \u201cOf course. You feel like an idiot because you think you\u2019ll be able in time to walk away from the trouble, then you realise the trouble is part of you \u2013 and you think, \u2018Why didn\u2019t I protect myself?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a strong sense of having let yourself down. And people can say, \u2018You shouldn\u2019t feel that, you\u2019re not right to feel that.\u2019 But hearing that feels like just another thing you\u2019re getting wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her memoir, Knox also writes about the death of her brother-in-law, Duncan. It was important for Fergus, his father, stepmother and sister to go to the trial in Rarotonga, and Knox wanted to be there, too. <\/p>\n

The accused was found guilty of manslaughter. For Knox, it wasn\u2019t as much about a conviction as it was about him taking accountability. That didn\u2019t happen. \u201cIt would have been better for everyone, including him, if he\u2019d pleaded guilty.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"FergusFergus Barrowman has been a publisher at Te Herenga Waka University Press since 1985 and co-founded the long-running literary magazine Sport with Elizabeth Knox, Damien Wilkins and Nigel Cox. He and Knox married in 1989. Photo \/ Victoria Birkinshaw<\/p>\n

At the trial, Knox recorded the testimony and transcribed the sound files afterwards, folding this in to write an account of the night Duncan was killed. \u201cI felt I needed to remember clearly what to write about what happened, for when Duncan\u2019s four kids are old enough to read about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Mum and Jo, I was closer to the situation. With this part of the book, I created a certain distance in the narrative voice, as I was the auntie and sister-in-law, not the uncle and brother.\u201d <\/p>\n

She says writing about Duncan was the hardest thing to get right in the book. \u201cBut once I figured out how to do it, it wasn\u2019t something that remained difficult to write about, whereas the other stuff remained difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aftermath still affects her today. \u201cFergus and I witnessed a crime of violence about three weeks ago, which we gave statements about. And we both immediately thought of Duncan. It\u2019s just really deep inside you. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019m more upset now than I was when it happened. Because we\u2019ve spent so much time with his kids and, because I love them, I feel their loss more. It\u2019s, like, why? Just the carelessness of it [the crime].\u201d <\/p>\n

Duncan\u2019s daughter recently messaged Knox about the book with a love heart. \u201cFergus was really pleased that I wrote about Duncan, and pleased I wrote about things from my childhood that have had a huge impact on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack, their only child, 33, also gave her his blessing. A love of writing runs in the family; he works in Wellington at Unity Books. <\/p>\n

Something Knox nearly didn\u2019t write about was Niki Caro\u2019s adaptation of The Vintner\u2019s Luck, but this, too, is part of her story. In the film, the sexual love story between a man and an angel had been reduced to a friendship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I tried to do in that chapter was get across how incredibly puzzled and shocked I was,\u201d she says. After a private screening, she went home and ripped down the poster on her wall. <\/p>\n

\"GaspardGaspard Ulliel as the angel Xas in the 2009 film adaptation of The Vintner’s Luck.<\/p>\n

A journalist kept phoning Knox for comment and eventually she spoke to him off the record. \u201cIn the end, exasperated no doubt, he said to me that I should scratch his back because \u2018one day you\u2019ll have another book you\u2019ll want to publicise\u2019.\u201d She regrets letting him quote her as a result. \u201cIf someone threatens something I love to do, particularly with my imaginative life, I cave in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not long afterwards, Knox became very unwell (unrelated, she says, to stress around the film). After experiencing a gastric bleed, she needed a transfusion. Two litres of blood dripped into her veins over several hours.<\/p>\n

It was such a strange experience that she didn\u2019t even feel scared initially. Because she\u2019d lost so much blood, she wasn\u2019t thinking clearly. \u201cOtherwise, I think I would have worked out what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox does want to talk about her mother. As an adult, she fell in love with her. \u201cNight, Ma\u201d was their nightly sign-off. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I left home, I was the daughter she talked to most, I think. I\u2019m temperamentally a lot like my mother. Once she stopped being extremely exasperated by this somewhat fiery middle daughter, she kind of decided she liked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to honour Ma [in the book], because she had such valour. She was an incredibly sensible, useful human being. Practical, strong, stoic, lovely, tricky, very exacting, very interested in people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother showed extreme fortitude when dealing with MND. Knox doesn\u2019t spare readers the details. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who have family members with MND are witnessing and dealing with these same things, and feeling they can\u2019t really talk about it in case they upset the people around them. So in this book, I\u2019m speaking to them, and to \u2018future thems\u2019, because it\u2019s a very specific experience. <\/p>\n

\u201cMum remained interested in life, completely herself, completely true to who she\u2019d always been. She did have moments of extraordinary frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Respecting her mother\u2019s independence and decision-making was hard to balance with the urge to take care of her. Her younger sister, Sara, lives in Australia, but made trips to Wellington to help their mother during her illness.<\/p>\n

Knox writes about care as \u201cthe greatest cause in the world\u201d and says her mother\u2019s caregivers did amazing, underpaid work. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe world seems made up of people who tear things apart and people who put things back together again, who keep things going. In families, care generally falls to people who are on hand and most capable.<\/p>\n

\u201cCare is a lot of cognitive work too, particularly with MND. When Mum was diagnosed, researchers were still discovering more things about it. I was always thinking, \u2018What more can I know or do?\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cThen, when Mum could no longer talk or write, but had all her mental faculties, it was \u2018What is she trying to say?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Shortly before she died, Heather asked to talk to Jo, but couldn\u2019t, because Jo had been hospitalised with a twisted bowel. \u201cAnd we couldn\u2019t make sense of what Mum was writing on her message pad, because her hands were so weak and shaky.\u201d <\/p>\n

Knox says there is a lot in Night, Ma about communication problems and issues with trust. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my own experience, because of that childhood betrayal of trust, I have had difficulty trusting people. That disrupts your relationships. The people you\u2019re very close to come to understand it, but others can feel themselves being not quite trusted, and that\u2019s unpleasant for them. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m constantly trying to think, \u2018How do I project my belief in this person?\u2019 Because it\u2019s a conscious effort. It\u2019s not natural. And the thing is, I actually like and believe in people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe, now, people will understand her more? \u201cYes. I want to be understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Night, Ma (Te Herenga Waka University Press, RRP $40) is out on April 9. Knox will be at the Auckland Writers Festival<\/a>, May 12-17, writersfestival.co.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But for her, the book is about achieving specific goals and reaching out to others. \u201cI set out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1903,15494,1863,190629,9852,1561,190628,1853,39735,5972,97190,156,2109,16409,23834,191,10109,78,11113,100343,36424,9851,46671,9462,111,139,2551,69,9426,26268,43296,6180,4499,9640,52,108649,1965],"class_list":{"0":"post-362315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-apartment","10":"tag-back","11":"tag-barrowman","12":"tag-based","13":"tag-bay","14":"tag-brownies","15":"tag-central","16":"tag-confronts","17":"tag-day","18":"tag-elizabeth","19":"tag-entertainment","20":"tag-family","21":"tag-fergus","22":"tag-golden","23":"tag-here","24":"tag-husband","25":"tag-in","26":"tag-kitchen","27":"tag-knox","28":"tag-largely","29":"tag-longtime","30":"tag-ma","31":"tag-memoir","32":"tag-new-zealand","33":"tag-newzealand","34":"tag-night","35":"tag-nz","36":"tag-plate","37":"tag-publisher","38":"tag-puts","39":"tag-shes","40":"tag-small","41":"tag-table","42":"tag-wellington","43":"tag-wellingtonians","44":"tag-writer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}