'A man I know wrote a book about a man he knew': Bill Pearson, Allen Curnow, and some thoughts about 'Dichtung und Wahrheit'

When it was agreed in October 2001 that I would write the biography that became 'No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson', the urgent priority was making the most of the time Bill still had to tell his story.1 Earlier in the year he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and we did not know how much longer we would be able to work together. Between November 2001 and April 2002 we recorded fourteen telephone interviews, supplemented by numerous letters. When Bill died on 27 September 2002, we both felt he had recalled everything he could about his life. It took me a lot longer to turn his autobiographical material into my biography, checking and verifying his accounts, filling gaps, seeking the other sides of stories, and tempering Bill's tendencies towards intense self-deprecation on the one hand, and score-settling with a handful of detested individuals on the other. In almost every respect he had been candour itself, usually providing evidence to support whatever he told me. Perhaps because of this, it took me some time to recognise the rare moments when he would switch from candour to opacity regarding aspects of his relationships with certain people very close to him.