Please click here for a sample story by Gene Lambert. You'll be glad you did!

If he cared enough, Gene Lambert could well end up being Stokes Valley's own Barry Crump...

If he cared enough.....

Don't misunderstand me; Gene is certainly passionate about his short stories. I could tell that five minutes into our hour-long conversation. In fact, it'd be safe to say they are the love of his life. He's just not all that interested in the sort of slick editing that might make publishers stop turning him away. He wants his stories to come across like the yarns and anecdotes shared by sheep shearers at smoko or in the pub, because, essentially, that's pretty much exactly the type of tales they are.

Forty-eight years old and now a long-time Stokes Valley resident, Gene spoke to the Library's Reading Club on the 20th of May. He has self-published five volumes of short stories (No Bullshit Vols. 1-5), and slowly but surely, his stuff is catching on. He's got dedicated readers in several countries around the world, often thanks to New Zealanders looking for some unique but essential kiwiana to send to relatives or NZ ex-pats.

Gene has lived his stories. Some are about him. Some are about blokes like him. Some are about blokes who don't like him, but he's not keen to let on which are which.  He grew up in the backblocks of rural Hawkes Bay where the landscape is rougher than the language, but left his job managing sheep farms during the 80s downturn. He moved south to the big smoke where he now works as a prison officer.

Gene turned his hand to writing. At first this was motivated by a desire to preserve the stories his own father used to tell. "He was the sort of guy who could keep a party going all night once he started talking," says Gene who goes on to say that he's found it hard to "put his pen down" ever since. He admits though that he still hasn't gotten around to writing down all his father's stories - there are just still too many of his own right now.

Though proud of his 51% for School Certificate English, Gene admits to not being the most educated of buggers. He refuses to be described as a writer - he's a story teller who writes them down. Yeah, the stories sometimes lose in their grapple with grammar and punctuation, but there's also no doubt that they are endowed with real richness and simple vitality. The stories themselves are much like a backblocks story-teller, dressed in a rough and torn bush singlet, but with a generous heart, warm and wilderness wise. They're populated with fictitious characters that we somehow feel that we know. - country larrikens, crazy dogs and naive workmates who need a few lessons in life.

So you don't tend to notice the grammar problems once you start reading. Gene swears he doesn't even know what an apostrophe is, let alone how to use one properly, and it doesn't concern him one little bit. He's tried writing with a dictionary nearby and it killed the whole process for him. Besides, a bloke telling stories in some boondocks alehouse has probably never seen a dictionary, let alone opened one, and it's this bloke, not Mr Shakespeare, that the stories are trying to emulate.

And that's exactly what they do.

Gene is no businessman. He doesn't write for a mass audience. "I write primarily for me. If you don't like it, don't read it," he says. And he doesn't charge like a wounded bull for his stories. He writes because he wants to, not because anyone else wants him to. That, I believe (and Gene knows) is what makes his stories so good.

Being compared to Barry Crump? Gene admits that this used to annoy him, but these days he's secure enough about what he's doing to take the comparison as a compliment, though he's careful to stress that he writes about a different era. There may be thematic similarities, but Gene says, and I agree, that he sports a style all of his own. Read the stories and you'll agree too.

You can order all five of Gene's books of short stories (No Bullshit Vols. 1-5 - each book is 36 pages) by mail. Simply send him cash or a cheque for $20, and he'll post them right to you. He'll even pay for the stamps. These books are good value all round.

Gene Lambert
P O Box 37-208
Wellington
$20 for the set of five books
Gene pays postage
Please don't forget to include your return address.

Please click here for a sample story by Gene Lambert. You'll be glad you did!