Gill South
Because All Fades by Freddie Gillies (Bateman Books, 2024), 220pp, $37.99
This is an extraordinarily good fiction debut from Freddie Gillies, who has also written non-fiction. Because All Fades is a human, messy, alcohol and drug-fuelled tale of a loving but problematic relationship between two young Kiwi men in their twenties. Andrew and Jaryd have known each other since meeting on the rugby field at the age of ten in Auckland, and they are, in theory, living their best lives in London and Paris when we meet them. The story moves between London, Paris, southern Italy and Auckland, with the two friends always keeping tabs on each other.
Andrew and his girlfriend Jess are in London, and Jaryd and Olivia (Liv) are in Paris. Andrew is in a job with a supposed sustainable purpose, but he’s quickly seen through it. Meanwhile his relationship with his Kiwi girlfriend from home has lost its lustre. And while Jess is clinging to what they were, Andrew is distant and distracted. They look at their lives with dissatisfaction. Why did they come to London on such an unoriginal route, they ask?
Jaryd, with the backing of his wealthy father, is running a successful start-up in Paris, and Olivia is pursuing her dream of working in fashion in the city. Their life seems impossibly superior to Andrew and Jess. So when they’re invited to Paris for a weekend, Andrew and Jess leap at the chance and are entranced. Jaryd and Olivia seem to have it all—dream jobs, a stylish apartment and a glamorous lifestyle.
When Jaryd and Olivia suggest a summer holiday driving from Paris to the southern tip of Italy, the London couple don’t hesitate. But the trip doesn’t turn out to be the whirlwind of fun and escape they were hoping for. Everybody’s emotional baggage comes with them, and it’s quite a dizzying cocktail. As often happens on such intense holidays, the road trip exposes all the flaws in the relationships between the couples and between Andrew and Jaryd.
Freddie Gillies stresses how these holidays force friends to make a lot of spur-of-the-moment decisions under pressure, which this group doesn’t do well. Tempers quickly fray, not helped by daily hangovers for Jaryd and Andrew. In the early days of the journey, Jaryd is dogged by increasingly urgent calls from his business in Paris, which lead to some revelations about the way he’s been running his company. Andrew can’t help but be judgemental. Jaryd does everything to the extreme and doesn’t seem to have a stop button—he has a ‘pervasive chaotic energy’ that’s only going to end one way. The author builds the tension nicely, revealing to the reader something bad has happened early in the novel.
The friends fall into certain roles on the holiday, just like a family. Andrew is the grumpy, sulky one, while Jaryd is the fun one, full of extravagant but not always practical ideas. Olivia is fragile and emotional and at the end of her tether with Jaryd, while Jess is the peacemaker. The time on the road gives each member of the group time to dwell on what’s not working right for them back home and with their partners. Gillies also weaves in the back stories of the friends; Olivia’s is particularly fraught, as she has lost her sister in a car crash and suffered abuse. She is puzzled over why Andrew seems to have a problem with her. Later, we learn why he does.
Gillies’ writing beautifully captures the messiness and fatigue around a road trip in a busy European country: ‘The days felt longer than normal as the road stretched before them like a ribbon towards the horizon … Vineyards sagged in the summer heat.’ He nails the attraction as well as the seedy side of it all. ‘Bars and restaurants spilled into the dirty narrow lanes and the streets were alive with people. As they neared the end of the square a firework exploded above them, burning embers cascading through the sticky air. It was a beautiful night, a night for the living.’
As the trip winds on, the two young men clash more and more, making life uncomfortable for Jess and Olivia. And as Andrew and Jaryd butt heads and drink to excess, it’s only a matter of time before things reach crisis point. When the worst happens, and with it comes some human collateral damage, the group are quickly on the run. The risk-taking Jaryd seems to be the one most freaked out by it all. His wonky moral compass is revealed to the horror of Olivia and Jess.
When the friends return to their lives, everything has changed. The relationships are in tatters, and Jaryd and Andrew aren’t speaking. Can they reconcile? Andrew has a chance of new happiness, but Jaryd moves to nip this in the bud. The story ends back in New Zealand with more drama to follow. It seems nothing can really break this friendship; these two men are inextricably linked.
In Because All Fades, Gillies tackles some complex issues, tracing the ebbs and flows of male friendship as his protagonists go from boyhood into adulthood and make their way in the world. With real insight, he describes the fond yet intense friendship between Jaryd and Andrew, which no girlfriend can compete with. The power imbalance since they were young boys has remained over the years, and while Andrew resents this, he also can’t imagine his life without Jaryd. He envies Jaryd’s swagger and risk-taking, although he worries about where his lifestyle will take him.
It’s rare to see such a relationship between two young Kiwi men up close in New Zealand literature. Gillies captures the push-and-pull chemistry between Andrew and Jaryd. There’s a strong loyalty there—they have a real love for each other—but they’re like siblings, often rubbing each other up the wrong way. And the more outgoing of the two is always forcing the more retiring to do things he’d rather not.
Jess discusses it with Olivia: ‘They’re on edge when they’re together, don’t you think? I mean they’re like two dogs chasing the same ball. They’re both so wound up around each other.’
Gillies, a young man, skilfully depicts the pressures young men face to make it in today’s world. ‘It’s so exhausting trying to make something of yourself,’ says Andrew.
‘Do you ever get sick of it? Sick of feeling like you’ve gotta make a whole lot of money or your life’s been a great failure. I’m in a shitty dead-end job and feel like I’ve got to stick with it because I have to try and make something of myself … Half my paycheck goes to rent and the other half goes up my nose after a few pints which we only have in the first place to ease the headache from the job!’
Always competitive, the friends can’t help but compare their lives, but we learn that neither is satisfied with their lot. Andrew says to Jaryd: ‘I see you and Liv and it feels different. There’s at least some spark there, some fire that I want to have. Jess and I need a bit of that spark.’ Jaryd responds:
‘I look at you and Jess and I see love. Stop comparing yourself to that weird standard you’ve created for yourself—it won’t make you happy. And definitely don’t compare yourself to Liv and me—that won’t make you happy either. You won’t find happiness in comparison because there’s always someone better looking and there’s always someone with more money.’
Because All Fades also shows how trauma in your youth can follow you into adulthood and affect your relationships. Jaryd explains his complicated feelings for Olivia:
‘I’m actually terrified. I know how wonderful she is … Everything should be perfect, every little part of my life should be perfect. But it’s not and I don’t know what to do. I feel trapped like all I want to do is escape … I don’t want to feel anything … I want the noise to stop but it won’t, it just drives harder.’
Gillies also explores the challenge of maintaining a relationship as a young man when your own future is uncertain. Some couples grow up together, making mistakes but maturing along the way, while for others, a lack of direction from one partner can mean they both fall apart. Both couples in this novel have serious problems, and they’re clinging together for the wrong reasons. In interviews, Gillies has talked about the ‘sourness of love’s dissolution’, which sums up well what the couples, particularly Andrew and Jess, are going through.
This author’s prose is beautifully modulated throughout and indeed delicious at times, inviting the reader to smell and breathe in Italy in the summer, Paris in the winter and a beach in Auckland. In writing that’s poetic and sensual, Gillies asserts the truth of the title of his novel: all fades. He touches on the yearning, the nostalgia, young people have for the simplicity of their childhood when they’re in their twenties. Andrew longs for the ‘rosier days’ of his and Jaryd’s youth when summer felt it would never end and mistakes meant ‘nothing but a story for later’.
Andrew tells Jaryd:
‘All we can do is try and enjoy the beauty in it because there is a lot of that … There’s a lot of good to smile about Jay, you just have to keep focusing on it and not let the other noise get too loud. It’s always the fear, the sadness, the terror that screams the loudest but it’s love that means the most.’
GILL SOUTH is a journalist and business writer who writes contemporary fiction book reviews for the NZ Listener. She is the author of the non-fiction book Because We’re Worth It: A where to from here for today’s working mother (Penguin, 2009). She also writes articles for TradeMe and MyHR.
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