Greta and Valdin

Product Information

Helping the siblings navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the tendency of their love interests to flee, is the Vladisavljevic family: Maori-Russian-Catalonian, and as passionate as they are eccentric. Yes, and no. Yes, because if a publisher gets excited about your book and can envision readers for it in their market then you feel like you must be doing something right. No, because if I need overseas validation to keep writing, I would question my reasons for writing. Having said that, I’m not a writer who would keep writing even if no one anywhere wanted to publish my work. I want readers, and I want to entertain my readers. If no one wanted to publish me anymore, I’d retrain as a DJ, and build an audience of middle-aged women who still want to dance it out to deep house beats. I believe that’s quite a large audience.

The book follows the lives and loves of Greta and Valdin, alternating chapters between them as they try to navigate aforementioned crushes, and pining, but also worrying about their careers, and their relationships with other members of their family. To be honest, I didn't think I particularly liked either of them in the opening chapters but by the end I was cheering them both on as they try to find the stability, groundedness, and love that they both need to be happy. Gallic read the book and loved it. Then my agent sold it to them. Beyond that I don’t know how it happened! From the first sentence, Greta and Valdin feels not like a beginning but a continuation, as life truly is. The first chapter isn’t a beginning; it’s just a day in two lives. Likewise, the last chapter isn’t the end; it’s just when the narrators cease to relay the story. Reilly said: “It’s a very exciting opportunity for my book to gain a new readership outside my home country and not something I take lightly. I look forward to working with the team at Hutchinson Heinemann and seeing what happens next!”

Some would argue the novel requires a more adept suspension of disbelief—it’s somewhat utopian, so my critiques based in a material reality are moot—but Greta and Valdin’s world is unfortunately very real, I live in it, surrounded by bohemian layabouts, queer relatives working in media; the friends of mine who do have jobs don’t have ones I would describe as sensible or normal.

But this, too, is a banal debate. I’m critiquing context and writers deserve more close reading and aesthetic analysis. But if they weren’t so concerned with policing the moral integrity of their peers—and reviewers—then this discussion would be completely moot, not just cliché. Simon waves me over into the meeting room and I close the door as gently as I can. I wish this potential firing wasn't taking place in a glass room, but I suppose that's late-stage capitalism for you... Among the young audience is Eoin McGlynn, a Year 12 student at Wakatipu High School. Eoin loves reading and writing short fiction and poetry and is excited to be volunteering this weekend alongside his mum Kendall: "From the moment I heard about the Queenstown Writers Festival, I was filled with anticipation. An event with the sole purpose of creating a forum for local creatives to share their work and learn from others in the field is such a wonderful idea."Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much in common. They're flatmates, beholden to the same near-unpronounceable surname, and both make questionable choices when it comes to love. Greta & Valdin is fresh, funny, tangled and brilliant. I can’t wait for someone to make the sitcom so I can keep Reilly’s characters in my life.' —Hannah Tunnicliffe, Kete Books The Vladisavljevic family can never remember “white people names,” Greta observing,“I know I can remember Sina, Min, Ashford and J-soek, but there’s no way I’m going to remember Kieran,” while her friend Elliot gets called “Greg” for a whole day. Racism, sexism and homophobia are all examined here in ways that make you think, sometimes cringe but mostly laugh, due to Reilly’s dry, acerbic tone which manages to also be warm and generous. Greta and Valdin is a complete world. I was totally captivated. It is warm and funny, inventive and charming, with a genuine and earned tenderness at its heart.' —Kate Duignan, author of The New Ships and Breakwater