Di Morrissey: ‘My publisher wanted me to write sex scenes, but my readers hated it’

When bestselling author Di Morrissey finished high school, she was at a bit of a loose end. Her mother could not afford to send her to university, so to make some money Morrissey fed the sharks at Sydney’s Manly Aquarium. She’d had just one hour’s training in scuba diving before gamely entering the tank, where she had an encounter with an aggressive grey nurse who she dealt with via a firm poke on the snout. Not surprisingly, she soon noticed quite a few blokes were starting to come and watch at feeding time.

Di Morrissey on her property near Wingham, NSW. Credit: James Brickwood

Morrissey tells this story to illustrate her attitude to life: just roll up your sleeves and get on with it – or in this case, strip off and get in the water.

Don’t be fooled by the blonde bouffant, impeccable make-up, un-creased linen and strings of West Australian pearls the size of quail eggs that feature in her publicity shots: they capture only one side of her life and personality. The other is much more down to earth and practical. She might not be a candidate for a survival show like Alone, but she knows how to cope in the wild.

Morrissey’s agent Jane Novak recently accompanied her on a trip into the outback to do research for her next novel, which she started work on as soon as her latest, River Song, was done. It will be her 32nd release.

“Di can catch a fish, make a fire with two sticks and fix a tyre,” Novak says. “She is completely competent in the bush, to a degree that would astonish most of her readers.”

Growing up on Sydney’s Pittwater, Morrissey credits her modest upbringing there with giving her the skills to handle most situations. “We had no electricity until I was seven,” she says.

As an adult, she enjoyed undertaking demanding physical experiences, such as climbing to the top of a huge waterfall in Guyana in South America just so she could observe a rare species of frog in its natural habitat. “We camped and slept in hammocks and in the morning saw the paw prints of jaguars under them,” she says, thrilled by the adventure that was part of the research for her novel When the Singing Stops.

‘We camped and slept in hammocks and in the morning saw the paw prints of jaguars under them.’

DI MORRISSEY

Her purpose in travel is never a holiday – she is a self-confessed workaholic, and don’t mention going on a cruise to her, she loathes the idea – but always to seek material for a new book. When she saw something that needed doing, no matter how far from home she was, she did it. Visiting Burma (she prefers the term that the country’s noted pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi uses, rather than Myanmar) with her son, who is a scholar in Buddhism, she met a monk who told her of his dream of building a school. She not only made it happen but continues to provide support (the school now has 150 students), though she prefers to keep the details under the radar, given the nature of the country’s current regime. “I have friends there who are in jail,” she says quietly.

Fear is not in her nature. “I deal with things as they happen; I don’t squeal,” she says. There is one exception: she admits to being afraid of bushfires. (Her escape plan is a little undercooked but does include grabbing Scout, the cavoodle her daughter Gabrielle, a sex therapist and advocate for victims of domestic violence, has given her on an extended loan.)

Despite her life as a former diplomat’s wife who has enjoyed her fair share of gracious living, Morrissey doesn’t expect five-star accommodation, as demonstrated on her recent outback trip with her agent. “We stayed in a very basic pub where the only two rooms had no windows and no locks and the bathroom was basic and shared with the patrons of the bar,” Novak recalls. “Di never complained” – although she did push the bed against the door at night.

Over several days, she chatted to the locals, gathering yarns and never taking notes until after her conversations were over. “That way people are less guarded and say more,” Morrissey says. Her combination of genuine curiosity, smarts, instinct and journalistic experience have served her well.

It’s been a tough year for Morrissey: she lost her devoted husband, Boris, to brain cancer, her beloved dog died and, after 10 years, she closed the paper she published, edited and wrote, The Manning Community News. The NSW Mid North Coast paper, which allowed her to campaign and crusade on local issues such as fracking, logging and the need for a better hospital in Taree, made her plenty of enemies, particularly on the MidCoast Council. “I’d like the lot of them to be sacked,” she says, still defiant.

She was undaunted by threats and lawsuits, and is now campaigning to try to protect the koala colony close to her property outside Wingham, near Taree, under pressure from habitat destruction and trucks travelling on her once-quiet dirt road. “Those of us who live here always stop if a koala is crossing the road, but those giant vehicles don’t.”

It’s no spoiler to say that River Song is about a group of female friends in a small rural community who win the jackpot ticket in the lottery and suddenly find themselves awash with substantial sums of money. Morrissey has no hesitation when asked what she would do if that happened to her: “I’d start another paper,” she says, and she means it.

It’s not like she needs anything material: she has wardrobes full of clothes, rooms full of good china collected in various exotic locations, and walls of books and art.

‘My lawyer and publisher warned me I would have sales but not prizes.’

DI MORRISSEY

One concession to ageing is that she’s given up heels. “I was a killer in stilettos,” she says wistfully, but these days she wears only flats and has given away her designer shoes. However, she is not yet fully engaged in the kind of decluttering that many people begin in their 80s, particularly following the loss of a partner. One still has to fight one’s way through a lot of tulle, muslin, lace and cushions to find the bed in the spare room. Minimalism is not the Morrissey look.

Her visiting grandchildren use her swimming pool more than she does (she does not exercise regularly, ignores aches and pains, but does some gardening and chases foxes and cockatoos away) and love gathering fruit from her orchard and eggs (fed on mud-crab shells from the river and highly prized) from her chooks. At present, she is making marmalade from her oranges, teaching the kids to make apple pies from her glut of a crop and experimenting with baking baguettes, though she no longer bothers to make her own butter. The stamina of the woman is as prodigious as her output: one book a year, without fail.

Despite her success as a consistently bestselling author, Morrissey is still rankled by the snobbery of being dismissed as purely a mass-market commercial writer. “My lawyer and publisher warned me I would have sales but not prizes,” she says, a hint of hurt in her voice.

She rejects the label of romance writer, and she’s not keen on venturing into steamier territory. “My publisher wanted me to write sex scenes, so I did it in Scatter the Stars, my book set in Papua New Guinea, with a lead character based on Errol Flynn. But my readers hated it, so I have never done it again. Graphic sex on the page is either gross or boring, and not necessary.” Instead, she has an uncanny knack for tapping into the zeitgeist and writing about themes that are in the ether or just about to be. In River Song, she raises the very current topic of coercive control, but with a light touch.

She points out that she’s been setting her books in rural and remote locations long before doing so became fashionable. “When I went and spent weeks on the Mitchell Plateau [in the WA Kimberley] to write Songmaster, about establishing a so-called bush university learning from First Nations elders, the word reconciliation was not even in use,” she says, indignantly.

“I have never had a serious review from a literary critic or been invited to a writers’ festival,” says the woman whose books sell in the millions. It’s a sore point, and a contrast to the adoration of her fans at book signings. Morrissey shrugs off any bitterness by keeping busy; she has plans to write a musical, no less (just as one of the characters in River Song does). Despite bruising times, her pastel linen look and her spirit remain uncrushed.

River Song (Pan MacMillan) by Di Morrissey is out now.

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