Review: Leather & Chains, by Kate Camp

When acclaimed poet and writer Kate Camp was just a teenager, for only one year, she kept The Diary, with a capital D. On the 7^th April 1986, in her typical style, she wrote: 

‘Didn’t talk to Cameron. As days without you turn into months & months turn into years, I can once again reveal my love & banish all my fears. Leather & Chains absent today xx Kate’ 

Since 2018, Camp has recited excerpts from The Diary for audiences, first as part of literary festival Verb Wellington and later as part of Bad Diaries Salon. In her latest memoir, Leather & Chains: My 1986 Diary, released by Te Herenga Waka University Press, adult Camp finally releases The Diary in full, complete with commentary and reactions to her teenage musings. 

What was thirteen-year-old Camp like? ‘I was clever, tall and skinny, I talked a lot, I got into trouble, I wore glasses, I had no boobs, I wasn’t attractive to boys although not totally unattractive…I was outrageous and daring, I felt lonely,’ she reflects candidly in the introduction.  

Covered in red fake leather, with gold letters declaring it was a ONE YEAR DIARY, anyone who has ever kept a diary can immediately picture a book like this –  full of possibilities, where you can pour out your entire heart and soul, albeit a bit performatively (someone might read said Diary, after all). 

The Diary entries themselves are a delightful mix of banal and melodramatic, with erratic punctuation and caps to match – classic teen. ‘Went into town & stuff around. Me & Tanya met these 3 tourists & showed them how to use the phone,’ the 2 March entry starts, immediately followed by, ‘CAMERON IS IN HOSPITAL!!! His “sore stomach” turned out to be acute appendicitis…MASS HYSTERIA!! FREAKY MAN!! UNCONTROLLABLE EVERYTHING!! Hope he gets well soon. Oh my god!!’  

The recurring whiplash in tone is both charming and, at times, shocking – 1986 was the year Camp’s parents went through a divorce and when she started experimenting with cigarettes, drugs and sex. The eighties references – though they would have been wholly unintentional at the time – are equally delightful. Occasionally, full images of digitised Diary pages are shared, Camp’s looping handwriting adding another layer to her words. 

As befits a one-year diary, each entry is barely 100 words.  On its own we might wish the Camp of yore had poured more of her heart out, but the Camp of today provides accompanying text that puts into context many of the recurring people, places and pivotal events. It’s interesting to see Camp admit that her younger self remains a bit of a personal mystery when she rereads, which both highlights the value of diaries as historic artefacts, and the frustrating fallibility of memory: ‘I come to [The Diary] from the outside, peering into a life that, while I know has been lived by me, is mostly novel and unknown.’ 

After racing through Leather & Chains, readers who want to know more about the next phases in Camp's life should also try her earlier memoir, You Probably Think This Song is About You, which came out in 2022. 

And while The Diary entries shouldn’t necessarily be approached with the same critical lens as other for-publication works, many of the entries reveal clearly experimental approaches to writing, including poetry, humorous asides and other forays into tone, as teenage Camp works to find her own writing style.  

Brave – as who would let everyone plunge headfirst into their teenage mind? – bold and a little bit vulnerable, Leather & Chains is a nostalgia trip for anyone who has ever kept a journal, is steeped in the pre-internet nostalgia of the eighties, or both.  

As for what the title Leather & Chains means, you’ll have to read The Diary to find out.