This book is, in part, a biography, but it's far more concerned with how J. M. Coetzee's life has affected his writing, and how that life permeates his books.
Almost all of his novels start from some autobiographical aspect, but by the time each book is published, the autobiography has been subsumed in a story that was barely gleaned when the book was begun.
David Attwell has had access to the huge array of notes and diaries that Coetzee deposited with the Harry Ransom Centre in the University of Texas - there are 140 containers of them - and has made use of these to thread his way through the immensely long process that it takes for Coetzee to write a novel.
Coetzee is meticulous in dating his notes, and this has made the task of discovering each novel's genesis and journey somewhat easier.
For a writer like me it's intriguing to see just how many drafts, adding and excising of characters (and deciding who is the main character), changing of plot (where there is one), deleting and adding of scenes, readings of other books (not always related to the theme of the novel), and much more takes place on the journey.
This constant shuffling is a minefield for Coetzee, who frequently despairs of understanding what he's writing about.
The surprise, perhaps, is that out of all this he finishes up with novels of considerable value, and that in spite of his dislike of realism, still manages to present vivid characters and situations.
I found the first five chapters rather dry.
Though they discuss the early books, they're more concerned with Coetzee's background and his angst at being South African-born, or perhaps even being born at all.
However, from chapter six on, the discussions of the making of the novels proved much more interesting, and it's only in the last chapter, on the three most recent novels, that Attwell, having less access to primary sources, is less lively.
• Mike Crowl is a Dunedin writer, musician and composer.
