Heroines Festival Book Month Program

Imbi Neemes’ The Spill
Ceridwen Bush
“There was something about the
pressure of the breaks followed by
the release of the accelerator that
made her feel in control again.”
What was the first prompt you had to
write this book?
A friend had a big argument with her sister
about an incident that occurred during
their childhood. Their memory of the
incident was so different, it was almost like
they were talking about two completely
separate events. The fact that two people
who were raised in the same household by
the same parents could experience – and
then remember – something so differently
absolutely fascinated me. I rummaged
around in my own memories, and soon
became fixated on a car accident I’d been
in with my mother and sister, which had
fundamentally changed me. So I decided
to use that as the inciting incident for two
fictitious sisters and their mother.
she ought to live and the life she longs to
live.
What do you think is important for
women who are aspiring to be writers to
know?
That you don’t need hours and hours each
week to write. Nor do you need to make
it perfect the first time. When starting a
new manuscript, I set myself an achievable
word target (250 words) that I make sure
I meet each day. By maintaining that daily
contact with my manuscript, I’m able to
keep the story churning away in my brain
so that by the next time I sit down to do
my 250 words, I’m ready to write.
with a puzzle, the reader doesn’t get the
pieces in order. In the beginning, we are
shown “after the spill” – a car accident,
a drunken mother and an afternoon
of watery lemonade - something that
signposted the end of young Samantha
In the novel, there is a chapter clearly
and Nicole’s parents’ marriage. In the
defined as “The Spill” - what is it about a
middle, we are given the spill itself: the
What did you learn - about anything, moment that marks it as a spill?
Imbi Neeme’s first novel The Spill won the moment the car tumbles too fast around a
including yourself - along your writing In the book, the term “the spill” most
Penguin Literary Award in 2019. It is a fullbodied
examination of relationships and juxtaposed by all the other indistinct spills
Writing has always been a way for me heart of the story. But it’s more than that
bend. The clarity of the spill in the novel is
process?
obviously refers to the car accident at the
trauma. It’s a brilliant story of secrets that sprinkled in, including seemingly unrelated
to emotionally digest experiences or – it’s the spilling of a jigsaw puzzle, the
absorbs its reader through loaded prose material – puzzles, vodka, tears – tiny
feelings (I’ve got decades of journals and spilling of liquid, the spilling of secrets. I
and complicated characters.
things that get lost in a moment.
notebooks as evidence of this!). While I like to make my titles work hard!
The story is told through the interchanging The everyday or usual as traumatic is a
often cannabilise my own life and the lives
perspectives of two sisters: Nicole and concept reminiscent of Virgina Woolf’s
of those around me, I try to do so with as “The Spill” has a form that is deeply
Samantha. A formal choice that exemplifies Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf presents a similar
much kindness and empathy as I can and interwoven with the experience of
the novels themes of perception and juxtaposition of trauma: veteran Septimus
to move as quickly as possible into the trauma. What did the process of writing
memory, but also puts the experience of Smith and his explicit, visual, postwar
trauma, and Clarissa Dalloway’s
I have little control over how people close Because I’ve never felt my own memory
realm of fiction. However, I’ve learned that something non-linear look like for you?
women at the forefront of the plot. The
diversity of secondary characters, both dissatisfaction with life and longing for
to me read my writing and that they’ll is particularly linear, I had this idea of
men and women, is refreshing – nothing past connections. Like Woolf, Imbi Neeme
often find themselves in places I haven’t structuring the book like a giant jigsaw
virtue signalling or irredeemably evil, just presents the reader with a traumatic event
put them!
puzzle, where I give the readers pieces
fully-fleshed. Despite never being in the so clear, it indirectly highlights the many
from different parts of the puzzle one at a
spotlight, I was fond of Nicole’s partner, stitches of trauma in everyday life.
What would your ideal reader experience time. Slowly, they are able to connect the
Jethro. Imbi shows us not only Nicole and The Spill, just like it’s protagonists, is
with this book look like?
pieces and see the bigger picture.
Jethro’s first interaction – playful, awkward full of cryptic secrets. It is a series of
I would hope it would make people reflect
– but Jethro’s and Samantha’s – hostile and scattered pieces: to understand is to work
on their own family relationships and The writing process relied heavily on a big
uncomfortable. These little interactions backwards, something impossible in the
consider that there might be more to the spreadsheet I created to manage all the
are something that tie all of the characters real world. Finally, in “Before the Spill”, the
past than they’ve remembered.
different puzzle pieces. It allowed me to
together. No moment is truly insignificant reader learns something that Samantha
sort the chapters in chronological order
in The Spill, nor in reality.
and Nicole never will. With this framework,
What are you reading at the moment? as well as in the order they appear in the
The Spill is a novel set against a backdrop the novel becomes a commentary on
I’m just starting ‘No Small Shame’
novel, as well as track character’s ages.
of two Australia’s: the 1980’s and now. It memory, truth, and trauma. Ultimately,
by Christine Bell. I met Christine at a
is a novel surrounding the spill: a clearly The Spill is a beautifully critical analysis of
workshop late last year and have been
defined moment in time, presented individual reality, and the trauma entwined
itching to read this, her debut novel. Set
differently in the beginning, middle, and in everyday life.
during the first world war, a woman is
end of the novel. It gives this feeling of
forced to make a decision between the life
collecting memories, or “pieces”. Just as
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