Challenging the reader

''My first book [2007 debut How to Stop a Heart from Beating] was published by Random House but when I sent this manuscript in, they didn't like the character. But I didn't want to change Lockie. That was what was difficult with the book, not softening her.'' Photo by Gregor Richardson.

Jackie Ballantyne, by her own admission, is a notoriously slow writer.

Take her sophomore novel, The Silver Gaucho, eight years and 12 drafts in the making.

No wonder the book's launch in Dunedin last week was an ''extremely jovial'' occasion.

Yet Ballantyne's joy is as much the result of people as it is the pages she has produced.

A decade ago, when she and academic husband David arrived from Australia, they knew no-one.

Fast-forward to a Dunedin book shop brimful of smiling faces.

''That was quite nice.''

Understated, Ballantyne's account of the launch reflects her approach to The Silver Gaucho, in which she traces outlines, baiting readers to use their imaginations before slowly revealing more layers.

There are occasional hammer blows, too (though they won't be revealed here).

Although its title refers to a prominent horseman, Argentina's northwest, where roughly half of the story is set, also takes a place among the novel's various colourful characters (including other gauchos) as Ballantyne evokes both the beauty of its landscape and its people.

It's somewhat surprising then to discover she began framing the words to The Silver Gaucho in Scandinavia.

''I actually began this book in the north of Sweden,'' Ballantyne explains.

''David takes sabbatical at Umea University. I had gone up there to write a non-fiction book about a French soldier.''

Instead, a gaucho rode into her imagination.

''He came out of nowhere, with this family, so I had to do something about it.''

Still, if the idea germinated in Sweden, it did have Argentine origins, Ballantyne first visiting the country in 2000 and returning twice.

''They weren't particularly long trips, about four or five weeks each time, but they were intense.

"We went to an academic conference in Buenos Aires, firstly, but after that we took off into the northwestern corner, where a lot of The Silver Gaucho is set.

''While we were there, we had an afternoon tea at a home in Salta called Finca Santa Anita.

"The owner of that place was a charismatic and amazing man, Carlos. When we left I had a sense there was something else going on, unfinished business.

''My husband, David, felt the same thing, so we invented an excuse to go back a couple of years later.''

A key thread of The Silver Gaucho is family. Or, more specifically, how familial ties are frequently re-examined and tested as events, be they past or present, unfold.

Ballantyne contrasts the intricacies and machinations of a seemingly well-to-do Argentinian family headed by a benign patriarch and monstrous matriarch with the story of key protagonist Lockie, a Dunedin travel writer whose family has unravelled, principally following the death of her mother.

As Lockie reluctantly accepts an assignment to track down Javier, a son of the Silver Gaucho who has fled his family to live in New Zealand, she faces her own series of internal and external challenges.

In doing so, Ballantyne sets up a key question: who is more distant from their family (and therefore themselves), Javier or Lockie?

She also explores the fallout from a fatal car accident (reader note: this is not part of the plot), suggesting physical damage is often easier to accept than emotional scarring.

''All my writing involves people being killed in car accidents,'' Ballantyne reflects.

''That probably stems from the fact my mother was killed when she was hit by a bus while crossing the road.

''That phone call to say the parent you rely on and lean on has gone ... You grow up very quickly no matter what age you are.''

Ballantyne emphasises Lockie has no basis in reality, although the author did borrow someone's voice for the character.

''I actually wanted her to be difficult. I like difficult characters.

''Obviously, at the end of the book, readers might feel some sympathy for her (enough said ... ) but I like to write about resilience.

"And sometimes resilient people have to have some kind of framework around them to support that resilience.

''As human beings we protect our vulnerable spots somehow. I think, deep down, Lockie is very vulnerable, but she's not about to show many people that.

''My first book [2007 debut How to Stop a Heart from Beating] was published by Random House but when I sent this manuscript in, they didn't like the character.

"But I didn't want to change Lockie. That was what was difficult with the book, not softening her.''

At its heart, The Silver Gaucho is a philosophical detective story.

Thus it's fitting that Ballantyne has one Argentine character comment on his disdain for tourists who seldom take their eyes away from a camera viewfinder.

His point (and thus hers) is that true observation requires the use of more than one sense.

She bolsters this by her use of non-linear interludes to the plot.

These wee chapters, set in a difference typeface and often depicting episodes of an Argentine television soap opera, hint at additional insights.

They also, importantly, check a reader's progress.

''When you travel, you often see what's in front of you but you also pick up things that are off to the side,'' Ballantyne explains.

''I wanted to write the linear narrative, but I wanted to provide these elements that inform and temper that journey.''

Ballantyne also shows she is not afraid of having an occasional in-joke.

The Silver Gaucho has been published on her own imprint, The Doby Press, which references the ambitions of a character from How to Stop a Heart from Beating.

''I have some really hard-nosed readers in Otago and Southland and I thought they might enjoy that link.''

Having held jobs teaching sports marketing at the University of Otago and the Institute of Sport and Adventure, Otago Polytechnic, Ballantyne is now a full-time writer.

She also chairs the Otago-Southland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors, a role that keeps her ''fairly busy''.

What now for the Port Chalmers-based 68-year-old mother of two adult children?

Well, she has a couple of other manuscripts on the boil.

And her husband has another academic sabbatical arranged next year.

The venue? Sweden, again. That suits Ballantyne just fine.

''I always write well when I'm there, because there is nothing else to do. In November it gets dark by 2pm.''