Deeply in love with the place and the people

Monday 5 March 2018 | Published in Local

Deeply in love with the place and the people
Tom Clancy novelist Marc Cameron and his wife Victoria Otte in Rarotonga this week, on their third visit here, have booked to return next year. In depth interview in today's Weekend Feature. PHOTO Matariki Wilson. 18030101

You might be wondering how bestselling author Marc Cameron, best known for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and Jericho Quinn, ended up in Rarotonga.

The goal for he and his wife, Victoria Otte, was to find a place that had sandy white beaches to enjoy a holiday – a complete opposite to their home in Alaska.

Tahiti was the first port of call, but when the couple found it wasn’t exactly what they were after, they began to look for somewhere else in the South Pacific that was relatively unknown.

They stumbled on to Rarotonga via TripAdvisor, and on their first night they were already planning on booking another trip to this island paradise.

That was their first trip, and when CINews met up with Cameron on Thursday, he was nearly at the end of his third stay, and had already booked another visit here in 2019.

Although he had missed out on French Polynesia, when CINews said that National Museum and Library manager Jean Mason believed that the Cook Islands were very Tahitian in nature, he laughed.

“It’s like I got the best of both worlds,” Cameron said.

Texan born and bred, Cameron has lived in Alaska for the past 20 years, where he will base his next book, Open Carry, which will feature a Cook Islander as a co-main character.

The Kuki, whose name is Lola Teariki, came to Cameron during his last two-month stay on the rock, as he fell deeply in love with the culture and the people.

“(It’s) the difference in culture, uniqueness of the island, and the friendliness and openness of the people,” Cameron said.

“There are very few places in the world where you can walk down the beach and not have someone try and sell you something.”

In the 90-minute interview earlier this week, Cameron was incredibly friendly and open, opposing his status as a world famous writer.

During the chat, he spoke about his fears that he had with taking over the Clancy series, how he still gets inspired now that he has retired, and why Teariki is someone that he hopes will make other Cook Islanders proud.