Angela Yin interviews Kate Holden about her experiences with heroin addiction, sex work and writing her new book.
This is your first book since you completed your first Arts degree all those years ago. It must be a dream come true!
It is! I’m kind of pinching myself. I’m delighted that I have it out there.
You’re very candid about your drug use and sex work. Was it difficult to go back and re-live all those painful memories?
I spent a year writing the book. I have been clean for five years, so there is a distance between me now and the story of that time. When I was writing it, I didn’t feel like I was dwelling on the pain, I just felt like a writer, drawing characters and stories, even though everything in the book is true. It’s actually doing interviews that I find more confronting because people are asking me questions and wanting to know stories that aren’t in the book. It’s one thing to write the book in the privacy of your own home, tapping away at a keyboard in your bedroom, and it’s another thing to publish it where everyone can read it.
Did you write much when you were using?
I didn’t write creatively, because I didn’t have the energy. I kept a journal, because I had a compulsion to chronicle what was happening in my life, and it’s just something that I’ve always done. I did feel the need to describe everything that was happening at the time.
Your book breaks a lot of stereotypes about drug users and sex workers. Have you ever felt trapped or stigmatised by them?
When I was using, nobody ever brushed me off as a ‘dirty junkie’. Except Centrelink, when you’re depending on payments and you have to be accountable to them. I guess I just had an internal confidence that I wasn’t a ‘junkie’, I was just a person who was addicted to heroin. And it wasn’t because I was a ‘bad’ person. For some reason I was never ashamed to say I was a heroin user or a sex worker. When I was upfront with people about what I did, I somehow diffused negative reactions.
Your book is very detailed about your life as a drug user and a sex worker, but it is not vulgar. Was that deliberate?
It was tricky getting that right. I wanted to write what was involved, but I didn’t want to do a hideous grunge-lit piece. I just didn’t want to shock people for the sake of shocking them, but it was important to retain the reality of situation and not gloss over anything. The style that came out didn’t lend itself to brutality.
You’re parents sound really amazing, how they coped with the knowledge of your life for the five years you were using.
My parents are just ordinary people. They weren’t hippies or anything.
Like any parents, they were horrified that I was using and there was a really
long time when my relationship with them was not great. It was a tough journey
for them, as well as me. They went to a support group called Families Anonymous.
They are very brave and loving and I am very lucky to have them.
You talked about accessing the needle exchange programs in St Kilda.
What was your experience using those services?
I thought they were fantastic. It was great to be able to get clean fits and condoms. The staff never looked down on me. I was upset when they were considering charging for fits and condoms once clients exceeded their limit, especially for working girls who were trying to do the right thing. The staff at needle exchanges were surprisingly fantastic because they would even put up notices to help working girls identify “ugly mugs”.
I recently read a statistic that 70% of people who use drugs were abused in some way,1 yet that isn’t your story.
I know! Drugs are a kind of medication to help you feel better and cope with your problems, whether they be physical or psychological. I remember going to rehab and being with other drug users who had all these tragic stories of horrendous abuse, and I felt like an imposter… I was going to say that perhaps it would have almost been easier if I had been abused because I would have an excuse for going down the path I did, but it probably wouldn’t have been.
Whatever happened to Robbie, your boyfriend? When I read that you were doing sex work and supporting both yourself and him, I felt like slapping him!
Robbie’s well. I see him occasionally. He’s clean now. He’s living in housing commission. He has trouble finding work because he has really bad teeth, which is what heroin and methadone can do to you. No, I think he’s brave and that he loved me.
So this was your first book. What is the topic of your next book going to be based on?
It’s historical fiction. It will be very sexy and interesting. It’s rather in the infant stages because I’m still doing the publicity for the current book. I’m really looking forward to getting down to work on it over the summer.
You talked about your employment prospects at the time when you were using, how you had done your undergraduate degree in Classics and that your employment prospects weren’t that good. Are you making a living out of writing now?
I’m lucky that I am making a living out of writing. The world is populated with taxi drivers and bar workers who want to be professional writers, but I’m fortunate to write for newspapers, as well as having my book published.
In My Skin by Kate Holden
Kate grew up in a middle class family in Melbourne, Australia, with no major childhood dramas. Towards the end of her honours year, she experimented with heroin for the first time. What follows is a fascinating, disturbing and compelling insight into a five-year addiction — a chaotic descent from a classics degree graduate, to heroin addiction and sex work.
One factor was always constant — the unconditional love of her parents
and sister. While the book does not romanticise any notions of approval,
it does illustrate the pragmatic and jovial response of her parents.
In My Skin is a candid revelation about drug addiction and prostitution.
The book does not resort to shock tactics, but approaches heroin addiction
and sex work with a certain modesty but not ignoring the realities.
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