Books
The romance of politics
By Chitralekha Basu (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-11 10:07
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Her protagonist Ruby, who will soon return in a sequel, is almost like a real presence in Rudd's life, sitting by her side in the bar on the 35th floor of a high-rise in Beijing, always awash with sunlight, "even on a soupy day". A quiet corner of the bar doubles as her office. Here Ruby is in charge, sharing the fun things that keep happening in her life, prodding Rudd to catch up with the next deadline.
Even when Ruby's talking about disasters in her life (like getting her Blackberry flushed in an automated toilet or launching into an inadvertent striptease in the rear seat of a cab, to change into formals before meeting the leader of the Opposition), "you can sense she's laughing inside," says her creator.
"And when she is not, she is making others laugh. I would much rather people laughed over my book than cried."
Expectedly, Ruby Stanhope's love of the red-soled Louboutins, avocado-scented shaving gels, beefcake journalists and writing up to-do lists, has bracketed her with the other favorite messed-up singleton heroines of chick lit - Bridget Jones (created by Helen Fielding) and Carrie Bradshaw (by Candace Bushnell).
Rudd doesn't mind the chick lit tag that essentially denotes superficial stories about women obsessed with career, fashion and hooking a guy.
"I embrace the genre," she says. "I don't think anybody should be apologetic about it. For crying out loud, these are stories about contemporary women."
She also sees an anti-woman bias in "putting down the truth about what women go through".
"If Bridget and Carrie were men, buying fancy phones and iPads, I doubt if readers would still find fault with them."
The man in her life, Albert Tse - a Chinese-Australian who previously worked in her father's office - is, of course, extremely supportive. It's his job, as an investment banker, that's brought Rudd to Beijing.
As a child she would often "eavesdrop" to hear her father speak Mandarin, and now that she's back in Beijing it somehow ties up with the Chinese associations that keep recurring in her life. It's just that she is yet to write about them.
Tse had asked her if the character of Luke, the super-efficient, if sloppily-dressed, closet-romantic chief of staff of the Opposition leader's office, was modeled on him. No, says Rudd. "Luke's lovely, but Albert's lovelier."
She would, surely, write her China book some day. It's too much of a heady experience being in China, she says, and cites digging into a mountain of chicken wings at the local wet market and holding them up for examination against light, or getting drawn into the dating frenzy on TV and rating the candidates' chances with her mom-in-law.
"It would be such a waste not to (write about them)," she says.
She also hopes to, eventually, acquire a pair of red-soled Louboutins, a brand she follows on Twitter. "I would like to hang these from the ceiling like a chandelier, bring them down at times to admire and put them back again. Sometimes I might also wear them."
