New Zealand biographer Joanne Drayton made a name for herself writing about other people.
In The Queen's Wife, she tells her own modern love story.
New Zealand writer Joanne Drayton Photo: Supplied
Drayton tells Jesse Mulligan she was in a "sanctimoniously comfortable position" – married to an Anglican minister and raising their two sons – when she met her current partner Sue.
It was at a university class in 1989 that the pair quickly formed a powerful connection that seemed to Drayton her "once chance at happiness".
"We were in marriages so it was horrendous, really. There's first of all how you feel… but its also how you're perceived, the way the world reconfigures your identity and your place in it.
"In a way, the hardest part for me was living with what I had done… not that I was coming out as a lesbian ... It's the hardest thing that has ever happened to me, and I hope, ever will."
In The Queen's Wife, Drayton writes that not long after she told her husband she was in love with Sue – and while everyone was still in shock – their two families went on holiday together.
"No one was more surprised than me. It was sort of like 'Beam me up, Scotty. This can't really be happening'."
Drayton says that after realising she loved Sue she felt like the same person so it was strange when all of a sudden people "despised" her and wanted to save her soul.
Even now, many people feel they have permission to persecute gay women in ways that are very discreet and hard to identify, she tells Jesse Mulligan.
While the experiences of homosexual cooking duo Hudson & Halls – who Drayton wrote a book about – echoed aspects of her own, she says being a gay woman is quite different to being a gay man.
When New Zealand society attempted to "make good" on the persecution of gay men, people didn't seem to feel it was necessary to do the same for lesbian women.
"There was huge damage done to women but there wasn't any restitution or any acknowledgement that had happened. There was acknowledgement for men because there were prison sentences but there were many women who served life sentences [of suffering]."
Photo: peguinrandomhouse
Writing about her own challenges for The Queen's Wife, Drayton had to take a hard look at the suffering she may have caused others.
"When you start interrogating yourself and thinking deeply about what you've done and the impact you've had on other people and you really challenge yourself, it's very uncomfortable.
"You can be very dispassionate about someone else's life and very covetous around the realities of your own."
The chess-piece metaphor in her book title evokes the way life events can move people into "contrary positions playing against each other".
Drayton has not had a relationship with he eldest son for over 20 years and in The Queen's Wife she explores how children can be hyper-critical of their parents' choices.
"Children are really interesting because they usually find some sort of fault with what you've done. It's a hard audience to please, your children, and I think that's something we all share as parents… to be the most loved and in certain circumstances the most hated person in that child's life."
To protect and preserve herself, Drayton says she no longer actively hopes to hear from her son.
"If you live that reality it becomes an anxious stream of wanting and waiting and no one wants to have that life… because this is not a dress rehearsal, this is it. I live in hope and I live in the belief that the best will probably come out for all people but it may not be that that relationship is rekindled."
Moving on from relationships that end is something all of us are tasked with, she says, and then we must find a way to keep giving the best of ourselves to the world.
"In some ways, that's the message of the book – keep going and savour the beauty of what comes our way in the hardest of times, and there's been some very hard times in New Zealand lately and overseas. People have their disasters and they need to find their way."
