Book discussion - Don't tell mum I work on the rigs: she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse

Greetings & salutations! It was a fantastic bookclub meeting today with some very animated discussion based around our July read: 'Don't tell mum I'm I work on the rigs: she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse' by Paul Carter.

We're switching things up a bit for this post and adding in parts of the discussion generated by Carter's book. No names have been added (wouldn't it be a hoot if I had done that, though), and what I've done is enter the question/point and then people's comments. Feel free to let me know if you'd like to see this again, or if we should consign it to the devil!

Title: catchy; attention-grabbing; name taken from Discovery Channel programme about odd jobs; was waiting for him to work in a whorehouse; mum knew exactly what he did, probably knew a lot more than he thought she should.

Cover: if I’d seen it in the library I wouldn’t have picked it up; not even in the 920 biography section – 622s – machinery/technology section instead; cover makes it a 'blokey book', font is unusual and eye catching; my son never reads books – he read this – don’t think I've seen him with a book ever.

Would you rather your son worked on a rig or a piano player in a whorehouse: As long as he’s only playing a piano!

Comment: Worked in London briefly and had the opportunity to work on an oil rig, turned it down, after reading this book am now glad.

Comment: My brother worked on a rig on his OE and he loved the lifestyle.

Comment: Got the idea that safety was secondary; so many 'boy' bits in there; workplace and employee safety important in some countries more than others; safe as they can do it but it’s still got to be done - although it's still extremely dangerous; scene where guys went on training badly hungover – something we couldn’t realistically do here in our own jobs; workplaces are more paranoid now; rig men don’t do drugs but do play hard; good to know that when they were on site they were on site and sober.

NZ connection – Maori men – an interesting link (towards beginning); bit of a violent scene; liked some of the Australian bits.

Comment: it might be a tiny bit cynical – if he’s working for an ad company he probably embellished the story a bit; commentary on how people will hear a story and then retell it slightly different to someone else – make it funnier etc.

Comment: made me laugh out loud; sad about the monkey – and he said at the end that the monkey had more brains than them all; didn’t lock him up very well; he was a monkey so he was smarter than them; he had free range; used to smoke their cigarettes - suppose monkeys would get addicted to cigarettes, in the 1950s theyd have tea parties for monkeys and give them cigarettes at the zoo; can’t really treat animals like they belong only in cage because they’re more than that but neither can we treat them like people.

What is your favourite story in the whole book: Ah Meng the young orphaned orangutan – they had to leave and gave it to the zoo; Joe flying around the fan; the comment that the '...guy might’ve been an alcoholic but any double amputee who can fly through a train is good in my book...' and back he came to make sure his trolley still had wheels on it; was like listening to a really good storyteller; monkey story except for the sad ending; what the divers did when they changed the tapes.

Comment: made me think - when he was in Nigeria it was just so frightening; talked to my son who had been in Nigeria and he said it was really like that, a scary place to be; places oil is found in often end up becoming scary places; there is a serious side to oil; look at the places where it’s found – some have fairly unstable governments.

Comment: read book recently written by Australian woman – teacher – who spent four years in Saudi Arabia and found it really hard to live the way women do there – not the same type of freedom, bus services being discontinued because women were giggling and so curtains had to be installed before being reinstated.

Mixing occupation and family life: very difficult; had a good relationship with his mother and stepfather; hard on relationships because the person who stays behind lives a ‘normal’ life when you’re away; he could be told tomorrow that that day was it, so one day you’re doing shopping and the next you're gone.

How do you think he managed to get an advertising job: spontaneous, freelance kinda guy; looked up his website and he’s writing another book, he’s still working on the rigs although not quite as much, bit of a gap between this book and the new one; sometimes took short term contracts so may have been able to fit advertising stuff in between.

Motivating factor for working on the rigs: money; adventure; where was all his money?; possibly investments; travel; couldn’t be a 9-5 person; thrill – living on the edge; it would be very hard to settle; wouldn’t have to be a person dependent on mod cons.

Weather extremes: funny story where they’d throw their cup of tea up in the air and it would freeze before it hit the ground.

Surprised the book was set in chapters: anyone try and read it out of sequence? Mostly no; a couple chose to look at a few different bits before going back and reading; most biographies are set in parts of life rather than chapters, e.g. childhood, adolescence, career etc.

Style: suited the story; long, well constructed sentences wouldn’t have done at all; prostate story of the doctor with a torch was funny; stomach bug – vile story; this book is for men to read not women – is a boy’s book; tooth abcess – you could actually feel his pain, the way he wrote it; if he couldn’t handle it then how could I? How could any mere mortal? You have to trust in the medical help in whichever country you’re in – not always a safe thing to do so much as the only thing to do.

Rating - scale of 1-5:
Two
Two - the monkey murder was a bit of a downer
Two and a half - too many gross bits
Two and a half - would recommend it to my nehpew, very funny but I wouldn't remember it again this time next year
Three
Three - funny and irreverent
Three - he was a monkey murderer
Three and a half
Four
Four
Four

If anyone has any books that they’re reading and enjoying, email it through to Natalie and write why so it can be posted to the blog.

Next book is: Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for August 2009