June’s Mauritius jaunt got her back on track

What’s Wrong with June? ****
Qarnita Loxton 
Kwela 

“You have to be a perpetual student and willing to learn.” An attorney, executive coach and novelist, Qarnita Loxton’s life philosophy is reflected in the protagonist of her latest book, What’s Wrong with June?

Because the eponymous June Cupido, an accountant dissatisfied with her humdrum life — spent scrolling through the Instagram feed of her friend Carla, who lives a glamorous life in Mauritius; tolerating her screen-obsessed and KFC-fiend of a husband Achmat; and attempting to manage her rebellious 23-year-old daughter (and daddy’s girl) Salama — becomes proficient in the art of learning and living when she makes an impulsive (and decidedly unlike-June) decision: to buy a ticket, hop on a plane, and head to Île Maurice for a holiday with Carla. 

Her realisation she needed an adventure began with a mood board adorned with pictures of idyllic islands: “Having a visual aid helped June to envision a start of a journey,” says Loxton. “June is a thinking kind of person, so the visual is new for her.

“She starts thinking, and then it becomes visual, and then it becomes physical, and she’s a whole person by the end of it,” Loxton explains of June’s trajectory. “And it’s all aspirational. None of what she puts on it is anything she’s done or could imagine doing at all!

“She’s focused, driven, educated and stepping out of her lane,” says Loxton of the similarities she shares with her main character. June’s escapades in Mauritius, which introduce her to a new way of properly l-i-v-i-n’ is also #relatablecontent to the author. “By writing and not following the legal path, it also feels as if I’ve stepped out of my lane and exposed myself to a whole new world of people outside corporate offices.”

The opening passage of the book reads: Bored. Scrolling. New Year’s Eve and I’m waiting for midnight to launch me into 2022. My right thumb locked in position over the screen, just enough to flick me into other lives. What else do you do when it’s 11.15pm and you’re 43 and alone in the suburbs? Sure. I’m not alone alone. I’ve a husband Netflixing somewhere in the house, a mother-in-law in her room, a daughter out in the world.

It being New Year’s Eve is auspicious, with Loxton describing the “sentimental value” she attaches to New Year’s celebrations. She says, “It’s rooted in my family. I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, so New Year’s Eve was the fun, festive part of the year. It also was a bit hopeful.”

For June, it draws on the “new year, new me adage”. “I played it up a little bit here,” Loxton confesses. “There’s so much emphasis on your new self and making things better and living the best life that you can live.”

Loxton also draws extensively on the aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown in relation to June’s life-altering journey: “We all sit with a Covid-19 trauma. Coming out of Covid-19, everybody’s down and bleak, and you’re not going out, and your career’s maybe stalled. And then I felt this vibe afterwards — that ‘What are you going to do?’ which is echoed in June’s yearning for rejuvenation.”

Writing a financially independent woman character was a must for Loxton: “I want to show women who are financially independent. She’s not only independent, but she’s brave as well. I think it’s so common to see women who say they struggle, or are not quite there, or are dependent on their husbands. And, of course, the reality is that many women are financially poor,” she adds. “And that’s part of June’s driving force. She wanted this independence. She has made it happen. It’s not something that men feel comfortable talking about.”

Her husband Achmat is a “struggling man supported by his wife”, with June’s role as breadwinner of the Cupido family factoring into their fraught relationship and his misery. “Love is love, and they do love each other,” Loxton says of the characters, adding that her depiction of male depression is an important aspect of the novel. “It’s something I wanted to delve into,” she says.

And as for deciding on Mauritius as the locale for June’s turnaround?

“I chose it because in some ways it’s relatable to me. I’ve seen the Mauritius ads, and we all know somebody who’s gone there. And I set the story in a place that was a bit exotic, but not to the extent that June would completely lose herself there,” says Loxton. “I didn’t want to place her somewhere completely foreign to her and the reader.”

The life Carla leads is completely different from June’s: think an Elle Decor-esque beachfront house, fancy dinners, designer clothes, and thousands of Instagram followers requiring regular updates on her fabulous life. 

“She’s curated a personality, and I’m not sure she’s even that conscious she’s doing it,” says Loxton of Carla’s hashtag haven.

“She’s building a business, and she’s living her best life and making the most of it,” she says of the friend June shares a complicated relationship with. Carla has a selfish, thoughtless side to her that impedes their friendship, but “they can’t imagine their lives without each other”, explains Loxton of the duo.

Whereas Carla is delighted by June’s decision to replace the mundane with adventuring around Mauritius, her family are deeply disappointed by her spontaneous act, sharing their chagrin predominantly via the My Big Family WhatsApp group (The one with Mummy, Pops, April, May, Steven, Achmat, me and all our kids): ‘What’s wrong with you, June?‘ ‘Poor Achmat.’ ‘Come home.’ ‘COME BACK RIGHT NOW.’

The opening sentence of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina — “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” — is rephrased by Loxton as “every family is dysfunctional in its own way” when she explains June’s familial ties.

“They’re very close to each other. They’re very involved in each other’s lives. They all have opinions on what the other one is doing. But they’re not completely open, and they don’t really express their vulnerabilities to each other,” Loxton explains. 

With her family fuming in Cape Town, June’s voyage of self-discovery in Mauritius includes an escapade which will have the reader asking, “What is wrong with June?”

“Why has she done this?” Loxton rhetorically asks in the novel of said surprising act (this is a spoiler-free read, by the way!). “She’s a good daughter, a good wife, a beautiful mother.”

June’s uncharacteristic behaviour was essential to convey universal human fallibility: “I wanted that from her,” Loxton emphasises. “Because we have all, at some stage in our lives, made a bad decision. And I wanted her to have that and get over it. Because we judge — we judge other people, and we judge ourselves.

“To have empathy and be able to put yourself in the shoes of a person who has done something wrong is an incredibly humble thing to do,” she says. “It’s human, so just let this woman do her thing!” Loxton laughs, while admitting she had to get over her own judgment of June’s actions. (And, no, Judging June wasn’t a working title!)

As much as June achieves self-actualisation while in Mauritius, she also acquires a new practical skill: learning to swim. 

“It takes courage,” says Loxton, who herself learnt to “swim properly at 32, when I was three months pregnant”.

“When you’re a child, you’re used to trying new things all the time. You’re used to being in the uncomfortable space of being a learner and a beginner.”

Ageing often coincides with the reluctance to be a beginner, Loxton adds, the discomfort stemming from a fear of looking foolish, feeling embarrassed or getting things wrong. Yet — curiously — with age she found herself caring less about what people think of her.

“That’s where life happens — outside your comfort zone. The swimming thing with June is a part of her growth. When she’s in water, she starts thinking about what she wants to do with her life, and she gets to the point where she physically works her way there.” 

Her protagonist experiences many firsts throughout the novel, so when last did Loxton do something for the first time?

Quite recently, it transpires, with an in-studio book interview at the SABC’s headquarters in Auckland Park.

“I was very nervous about it! It was the first time I had been in a TV studio, and I kept on thinking, ‘Will I forget all my words?’ And I did forget to tell people about the launch!” she says with a chuckle.

“It wasn’t maybe so much being in the studio, but it was being exposed to a different slice of life ... You go in there and you see these people behind the monitors, and you see these ladies all walking, doing their thing, looking into the camera, and it’s that exposure,” she says.

“And writing gives me a lot of that. A lot of firsts.

“And it’s made me become aware of how many slices of life there are.”

If writing be the food of life, type on ...