Kate Camp, a Wellington-based poet and communications professional, has recently unveiled her memoir, You probably think this song is about you, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. After its release, the book quickly garnered attention, and for good reason. Having spent a day immersed in its pages, the memoir proves to be a compelling and unflinchingly honest exploration of a life lived, examined through the lens of personal experience and sharp self-awareness.
In a recent interview with Kim Hill, Camp discussed her writing process, describing it as a journey of topic selection followed by extensive writing, aiming to unearth a central “nugget” of truth. From this core, she then meticulously constructs the narrative, working both forwards and backwards in time. You probably think this song is about you is arguably a narrative of female development, spanning from 1972 to the present day. It’s a journey marked by personal nostalgia—vividly recalling the sights, sounds, and smells of her grandparents’ Hastings home, and the school assembly hymns of her youth—interwoven with classic coming-of-age themes like youthful experimentation with drinking, smoking, and sex. The memoir also delves into territories increasingly explored in women’s literature, such as the challenges of fertility and the often-unspoken cruelties faced by those without children. However, Camp goes further, venturing into realms of personal revelation that many would hesitate to share, including a remarkably candid chapter on childhood and adult experiences with bedwetting.
Running through these personal anecdotes are enduring threads of her life: a tumultuous, on-again-off-again relationship marked by addiction and abuse, the tragic suicide of a close friend, the steadfast presence of a loving family, and a recurring theme of narrow escapes and second chances.
Working alongside Kate Camp at Te Papa, where she serves as Head of Marketing and Communications, provides a professional perspective on her public persona. My acquaintance with Kate is relatively recent, meaning the formative experiences recounted in You probably think this song is about you exist for me as just that—history. The memoir’s narrative arc largely concludes before our paths crossed, presenting a portrait of a “smoke-soaked Kate” that, while understandable given the context of her recollections, isn’t entirely the Kate I know today. Interestingly, she evokes memories of my older cousin Kim, a contemporary, sharing similarities as over-achieving university dropouts, Greenpeace activists, rebellious former head girls, and wry observers of human nature, punctuated by a smoker’s laugh.
Certain aspects of the book possess a gripping, almost horrific quality, reminiscent of watching a slow-burn horror film where circumstances escalate with a dreadful sense of inevitability. The image of a young teenager, adept at navigating adult spaces by donning her mother’s clothes and talking her way into Courtenay Place pubs, is unsettling. Equally concerning is the picture of this same teen spending time at a 41-year-old pot dealer’s house. There’s a palpable sense of a young woman undervaluing herself, trading her perceived worth for immediate gratification and fleeting desires that quickly morph into needs. This trajectory leads to an abusive relationship that she not only enters but remains within, becoming, as she describes, the “baddest version of herself.” Yet, even amidst this self-destructive phase, the reader glimpses the analytical, risk-assessing mind that characterizes the Kate Camp I know today—a relentless logic applied to navigate even the most precarious situations towards a manageable outcome.
I spent ten years of my teens and twenties with an one-again-off-again boyfriend, and we used to fight like that all the time. I remember our downstairs neighbour saying to me one time, When I hear you guys fight, and I can hear things smashing and breaking, and I hear you screaming, when should I call the police? And I didn’t skip a beat, didn’t think, I wonder if that’s a rhetorical question. I just said, I’ll call out to you. If I ever call your name, go straight next door and call the cops. He didn’t have a phone.
What is truly remarkable about You probably think this song is about you, especially knowing Kate in a professional capacity but not intimately, is her capacity for self-compassion without self-exoneration. The honesty within its pages isn’t performative or attention-seeking; it’s a meticulously excavated truth, drawn out and articulated with an almost inevitable force.
Even though it’s the truth, it feels unfair and somehow cheap for me to write about Jimi’s anger, his violence. It’s like playing a card that changes the meaning of everything, makes it black-and-white. And it wasn’t like that. I did so many things in that relationship that I’m ashamed of. I lied and stole and cheated, and I was cruel, and most of all I’m ashamed of how I used him, of how, over those ten years, I went back time and time again, always for the same reason. He said to me once I don’t think you really want to have sex with me, you’re just trading sex for intimacy. And I thought No, I’m trading sex for drugs and intimacy.
This resonates deeply, echoing personal experiences. For me, widowhood, now a decade in, carries a similar weight. “My first husband died. He killed himself.” This statement, while factual, can feel like a shield, absolving me of any perceived responsibility. Yet, beneath the surface, responsibility, in its complex forms, inevitably exists.
Another point of connection lies in our shared tendency to under-react.
The fertility doctor had been asking me if I’d been feeling any side-effects from the hormones, any breast tenderness, night sweats, strange emotions, and I’d been happy to report I hadn’t felt a thing. Now I was coming to realise that was a bad thing, my body’s stoic insensibility. I was under-reacting, just like I always did.
This under-reaction, in part, stems from a natural resilience, an ability to maintain composure amidst chaos. Personally, I attribute it to what I describe as “burnt-off emotional nerve-endings,” a state where emotions are observed rather than intensely felt. There’s a hint of Scottish practicality—emotions are free, yet somehow not always worth the effort—and a distaste for emotional displays, for being perceived as a “mess.” Recalling teenage years, attempts to conjure a dramatic crying episode in front of the mirror proved futile; the emotional investment simply wasn’t there. Twice, men have left my life—one through suicide, the other for another woman—both citing, in different ways, a belief in my inherent resilience: “I know you’ll cope.” Implicitly, this translates to: “I know you won’t make this hard for me.”
Camp recounts a visit to a doctor for abdominal pain, facing the potential diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
At some point he said that I was very calm, and I remember thinking, I don’t really see what the alternative is, were there patients who would burst into tears or shriek No no no or say well that’s just fucking brilliant isn’t it. I said something like Well there’s not much point getting upset at this stage. I had a therapist at this time – she was a Scandinavian of some kind – and I remember her saying to me once, in her northern European accent, I find it interesting that you say there is ‘no point’ in feeling a certain way. Do you believe that emotions should serve a utilitarian purpose? It was the kind of annoying question you pay good money for.
A distant memory surfaces of a TV series, possibly from the turn of the millennium, titled something akin to Child of Our Times. The program followed a jovial child development expert tracking a cohort of children born around the same time. One episode remains particularly vivid. The children, around four years old, were being tested on their ability to recognize and articulate emotions. The test involved playing recordings of a voice actor reading recipes in Italian, imbued with exaggerated emotions: profound sadness, elation, and fear. Children were asked to hold up cartoon faces corresponding to the emotion conveyed in the voice—smiley for happiness, crying for sadness, and so on.
Most children performed reasonably well, but one little blonde girl consistently faltered. She persistently held up the smiley face even when the voice dripped with sorrow. Intriguingly, this child was described as unusually perceptive, an “old soul.” Her family was navigating some form of stress, perhaps parental discord, and she seemed to act as a quiet mediator, soothing tensions. The child development expert, intrigued by the mismatch, probed further, questioning her about the face/voice discrepancy. Her response was profoundly insightful: “It’s important people think you’re happy, even when you’re sad.” The wave of tenderness, sadness, and self-recognition that washed over me in that moment remains potent.
Kate Camp echoes this sentiment in You probably think this song is about you:
I have always observed but am still surprised by the fact that, when you pretend to be OK, most people think you are. You’re expecting at least some of them to see through you, but they almost never do. I have a recurring dream that I am being held hostage, or in some dangerous situation, some threatening men are there who I know mean me harm, Whatever the situation, I know instinctively that the only way to survive is to pretend I don’t know they are a threat. I need to behave as if everything is fine, while calculating my escape. In one version of the dream, I am lying in bed with an intruder next to me, crouched by my face; I pretend I think he’s a family member and tell him, groggily, that I’m asleep. In another I’m being held in a compound, but I walk around with my captors, politely commenting on the landscaping, while secretly looking for a way out. The dreams never resolve one way or another, but the sense on waking is of the enormous pressure of knowing your safety depends on cheerfulness, on your ability to convince others that you are blithely unaware of danger. I know my sister has the same dream sometimes.
In her acknowledgements, Camp touches upon her father’s reaction to You probably think this song is about you. Her parents’ love is a consistent and grounding force throughout her life, a counterpoint to the more turbulent aspects she recounts. However, her father expresses a concern that the memoir predominantly highlights the “bruises on the apple” of her life, overshadowing its “shine”—her fulfilling marriage, successful career, literary achievements, and established place in the world. Why, he wonders, is she portraying herself in such an unflattering light?
Yet, within the narrative of You probably think this song is about you lies a profound wisdom. Camp, in her Kim Hill interview, mentions a “not very startling self-realisation of the Covid era,” and it’s one that resonates deeply. It’s not a groundbreaking revelation, but it’s a truth lived and learned, likely through countless ordinary moments that may now cause a wince of recognition, but become compelling when rendered into prose:
When you think about rock bottom, it sounds like a one-time thing, but in my experience it’s a place you end up going to over and over. If you’re lucky, you learn something each time you visit.
You probably think this song is about you is not just a memoir; it’s an invitation to contemplate the cyclical nature of struggle and growth, the masks we wear, and the hard-won wisdom gleaned from navigating life’s inevitable “rock bottoms.” It is a testament to the power of unflinching honesty and the enduring strength found in self-awareness.
