The novella “Murder at the Mountain Rush” about Kinglake’s earliest days is “a balance between the facts with a little fiction” said debut author Robert Verhagen at the launch on Wednesday evening, October 19.
Over 60 people attended the night with local artist Michelle Bolmat also contributing to Murder at the Mountain Rush with illustrations. Due to illness, Kath Stewart was unable to attend.
Murder at Mountain Rush is set in 1862, the story of Albert Nash whose prolonged gold-digging career in the mountains at the Caledonian diggings has allowed him to hide from the settled world below in Melbourne.
Desperate to find and be paid for gold Albert meets a native (Aboriginal) tracker only to have his hopes soon dashed when another man is murdered at ‘Mountain Rush.’
During this era mounted police travelled to what is today Kinglake from either Whittlesea or Queenstown (now St Andrews) often at the request of the ever-increasing number of diggers and storekeepers in the Mountain Rush area.
Whilst the narrative is a grim one the story tells that of a ‘community spirit’ “that still lives on today on the mountain.”
Robert’s own journey to debut author began when Brad Quilliam walked into Robert’s Kinglake office, handed over a business card and introduced himself as a local publisher. He [Brad] then “put me in contact with Deidre Hawkins (President, Kinglake Historical Society) and Kath Stewart,” with the Eltham Bookshop and PageTurners also helping with the book launch.
In between being interviewed during the book launch Robert also performed two songs on acoustic guitar and by night’s end was busy signing copies of his book. Robert also read aloud some quotations from Murder at Mountain Rush, reading with a passion and expression not often heard in people reading aloud today.
Deidre Hawkins, president of Kinglake Historical Society interviewed author Robert Verhagen:
Deidre Hawkins [DH]: “What made you write this story?”
Robert Verhagen [RV]: “I saw something in the (Kinglake) post office and I thought “Murder at mountain rush, what a great name.”
DH: “What research was involved?”
RV: “[I] spent more time on the ground than in books.”
DH: “How did you go making historical facts into a story?”
RV: “ Balance the facts with a little fiction.”
RV: “Trove was a massive source of information, a real sense of time and place.”
RV: “Unless you’re going through old newspapers you’ve lost that history.”
DH: “Like an Argus article trekking through the bush.”
RV: “Albert loses a lifestyle.”
DH: But the community’s important?”
RV: “Yes.”
RV: “Always was a history nerd.”
DH: “What difficulties did you encounter writing the book?”
RV: “Mostly the backroom stuff, say thank you for page numbers.”
RV: “Writing is ‘the fun bit’ the rest is the hard stuff.”
First published in The Local Paper, Wednesday, October 26, 2016 p. 20.
