Andrew Upton, the Australian playwright, producer, and director, has released his debut novel Krank Fuss, a fantastical fable about a disfigured chicken set on a farm in Nazi Germany. The book, described as an allegory in the spirit of George Orwell's Animal Farm, blends humor with bleakness and violence. Upton, who lives in East Sussex with his wife Cate Blanchett and their four children, shared insights into the novel's origin and his creative process.
The Inspiration Behind the Novel
Upton, a keeper of chickens, got the idea two years ago while visiting a pullet breeder. He watched as a young man caught chickens from a larger flock and dumped them into a box. 'I thought, what are they [the chickens] thinking? How do they make sense of this?' Upton recalled. He imagined a chicken with a disfigured foot and wrote a 10-page story, but set it aside, thinking it was 'a bit fanciful.' However, the chicken character stuck with him.
The framing device came to him one night as he was going to bed, influenced by the sound of planes from nearby Biggin Hill airfield—a reminder of his father, John, who served as a navigator in the RAF during World War I. 'The planes above my head, feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs,' Upton said, combined with anxiety about wars in Europe, led to the idea of a fable written by a World War I veteran for his unborn daughter.
The Story and Its Themes
Krank Fuss (German for 'sick foot') follows the disfigured chicken as she arrives terrified in a box and learns about the hierarchy and brutishness of other anthropomorphized animals on a smallholding. The human violence of World War II builds around them, with lines like: 'A convoy of trucks boomed by. Inside, ready for the abattoir, were lines of terrified young farmers. Their eyes were like gleaming stones, vivid white with fear and sorrow.'
Upton acknowledges the book's violence—a predatory cat meets a gruesome end, a rapist rooster is killed, crows kill, and blood spurts from decapitated poultry heads. But he also notes kindness and thoughtful ideas about powerlessness. 'There are a number of levels depending on how astute the reader is,' he said, adding that he finds the book 'funny' as well as 'a bit bleak and black.'
Influences and Early Readers
Upton, who served as co-artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company with Blanchett for 10 years, credits his adaptations of Chekhov and Ibsen for influencing his fiction. 'I think all those writers were on my shoulder,' he said. 'Getting to know Chekhov's worldview, so very rich and beautiful but very layered and complicated. And Ibsen, his fantastical layer of work and that hyper-naturalistic, hyper-realistic understanding of people.'
He didn't show Krank Fuss to anyone until the full draft was complete. His first reader was Blanchett, 'as soon as it is turned out.' He also gave it to Australian writer and director Kip Williams and his eldest son Dashiell. 'It's really weird,' he warned them. 'All three of them said, “Stop telling people it’s weird.”'
Upton's Writing Routine and Future
Upton writes early in the morning, often starting at 5am. 'I love the mornings, I get up at 5am. It’s a blessing from the universe,' he said. He writes more on days when Blanchett does the school run. Despite his busy life with family and their film company, Dirty Films, the idea for Krank Fuss persisted. 'I don’t know where my writing will lead me to now, but it has led me to this, and I am thrilled. It has opened up a doorway to me as an older fellow that I honestly thought had sort of shut.'
Krank Fuss is published by Puncher & Wattmann and is available now.
