This is happiness: what makes author Markus Zusak smile
He’s one of the nation’s bestselling authors – but writing is not the only thing that makes Markus Zusak happy.
On a stroll through Sydney’s Centennial Park, Markus Zusak is discussing happiness when a massive mutt of indeterminate origins lopes towards him. All fur and bounce, Frosty, “a wolfhound-cross-something” is five and a half, and as boisterous as his rapid approach from the far side of a sports field suggests.
“Look at this,” Zusak says proudly as Frosty ends his run, via a brief but vainless attempt to frolic in a patch of bush, settles on his back, paws in the air, and begins to tear at a stick. “This is happiness.”
Exactly whose happiness he is referring to is unclear because as much as Frosty seems to be having a good time, his owner seems equally enthusiastic spruiking his charms. “He’s the happiest but naughtiest dog I’ve ever had,” says Zusak, master of multiple rehomed canines, several of whom, including Frosty, feature in his latest book Three Wild Dogs and the Truth.
“He’s got a really free spirit.”
To hear Zusak, author of the international best-selling novel The Book Thief, speak of happiness is to witness a heartfelt recitation on dogs, “all the fur, the stink, the physicality, and when they rub up against you and they’re really saying to you: ‘We both know it: I’m yours’.”
So much about his four-legged mates gives him joy. There’s Frosty’s enthusiasm and energy. “He’s the best personal trainer in the world. If I’m feeling bad he still gets me up and we go out.” There are the daily walks, often at the crack of dawn and on the coldest of mornings, meandering through great tracts of Sydney’s parklands. And there’s the ongoing glow of just having a mutt of any description in your life.
“There’s a day-to-day happiness that you commit yourself to them every day.”
Still, when it comes to what makes Zusak happy, dogs are not the sole top-dogs. According to a list suggested by his 19-year-old daughter, he derives equal happiness from surfing and rugby league, while gardening is noted as an obsession. Writing, from which he has carved his successful career, is denoted as a side hustle.
“That’s because it’s one of those jobs that people think you are never working,” says Zusak, 50, with a shrug and a smile, “even my own children”.
In fact, writing, which has consumed much of his adult life, also brings him enormous happiness. “When I am writing, even if it’s not going well and I am miserable, I am still happy.”
Even in childhood, writing brought him enormous joy. One of his happiest moments is being 14, staying up all night to read S.E. Hinton’s coming of age novel The Outsiders, and imagining it was real. “It was recognising that it was just black words on white paper, and I was seeing it in colour,” he says.
It’s a feeling he has chased ever since. “I’m at my best, and I guess I don’t even think of it as happiness, when I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, which is writing. People often say to me you must procrastinate; you must mow the lawn a lot,” he says of that assumption that he doesn’t have real work. “And I am happiest when I am living in those two worlds: this world but also where I feel I could roll out of bed and be in that other (writing) world.”
He loves the insularity of the writing process, “this terrain inside yourself that you’re just trying to master”. He loves the mental training. “You go on this big campaign to do something every however many years, or once a year for some people. You put this great big push into it and then it’s done and you sort of recover and then you build up the strength to do it again. I like that almost seasonal aspect of it.”
He even embraces the taxing parts of writing: “I love that it’s hard and you have to work hard to believe in yourself to do it.”
But while writing makes him happy, his calling is not without its drawbacks. “One of the parts of being a writer is the humiliation,” he says with a wry smile.
“You can be at a wedding and your book has hit The New York Times bestseller list and there’s someone there who’s drunk and says, ‘Congratulations on your book but I just couldn’t get into it. And it’s not like I didn’t try.”
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