Dignity is a tender coming-of-age novel about a schoolboy whose unlikely friendship with a misunderstood binman named Bogie teaches him about dignity, friendship, and the hidden richness of ordinary lives. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?

There’s a song by the Scottish band Deacon Blue called Dignity.  The story told in the song was the inspiration behind the book and the central character Bogie.  I’ve always loved the premise of an underdog quietly striving to achieve a goal.  That formed the basis for the narrative and provided the foundation to allow the story to unfold.

Bogie speaks very little, often communicating more through his actions than his words. What drew you to such an understated character?

The book is set in my hometown of Petone, New Zealand. When I was growing up there, we had a local binman who kept our streets clean and very much kept himself to himself. I didn’t know the man at all, but as I created Bogie, I couldn’t help but wonder what that binman from my 80s childhood was like.  His presence was very much with me as I wrote, and he evolved as he landed on the page.  Because he said so little, the character Bogie intrigued me.  I placed myself in the boy’s shoes, trying to understand him more, yet from the outset, I knew he’d have a reticence to share anything about himself.  It’s funny, but there’s a school of thought that authors should know everything about their characters before they set them on the page, and some writers adopt that by creating whole dossiers on the characters within their books.  I’m completely the opposite; I want to discover my characters as I go along and see how they react to events as they happen.  Sometimes they surprise me, and that’s the joy of writing: when the unexpected appears on the page, and I think, Woah, didn’t see that coming! 

The narrator is also undergoing a coming-of-age journey. How did you balance his growth with Bogie’s story so that neither character overshadowed the other?

Dignity was always going to be about Bogie, but given his taciturnity, he was never going to tell the tale himself.  The older narrator, looking back at his pre-teen years and his relationship with the older man, became the vehicle for telling Bogie’s story.  In itself, though, I didn’t think there was enough to sustain a novel, so I introduced backstory for the boy, conscious that the pursuit of the boat was imperative to the outcome. If I’d placed more emphasis on the boy’s growth and his life, I believe I would have lost the foundation of the story, and a different book would emerge that placed Bogie into the background, the very place from where I wanted him elevated!

What do you hope readers notice differently about the overlooked people in their own communities after reading Dignity? 

One of the great disparities in the developed world is the reward that comes to those who, I consider, do very little that is worthy. For reasons I will never fully understand, our capitalist model rewards certain industries and roles far more greatly than others. Yet some of our most honorable professions- teachers, carers, service workers, emergency services, the key workers that we couldn’t do without during the pandemic – are the least rewarded, and often some of those professions are looked down upon. If there’s one thing that I hope readers take away, it’s the understanding that there is worth in everyone, and no matter how overlooked, those people should be recognized as contributing something important to our society and be allowed to pursue their dreams.

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