The plot thickens

She's been a teen stowaway, a prostitute, and a GP. So it's not entirely surprising that Lauren Roche has now turned to fiction writing, in the latest chapter of her extraordinary life.

- SHARON STEPHENSON

There's a Japanese word, ikigai, which means having a direction or purpose in life. Although there's no literal English translation, it's a philosophy that embodies the art of living a balanced, slower life - one that brings joy.

Mention to Dr Lauren Roche that she may have achieved ikigai and, eye roll aside, the GP-turned-author will agree. "These days, I have a nice quiet life," she says from her home in Northland's Tutukaka, a hefty stone's throw from the water.

"I actually live a hermit life, which I love." I'm calling to chat about the 60-year-old's debut novel, Mila and the Bone Man. Set in the Far North, close to where Roche has lived for seven years, it centres around Mila, a young woman of Croatian heritage, and her Māori neighbour Tommy, whose passion for the bush and bones changes her life in ways she couldn't imagine. "It's a story of deep friendship and complex grief and the way that affects people. And how these characters, who are of the forest, seek healing and solace from that forest."

Before we get to that, and chat about why Roche gave up medicine to write, we first have to dip into how she got here, to a writing hut in dense native bush, her fivemonth-old puppy at her feet.

It's an astonishing story that has everything: prostitution, fire-eating, prison, sexual abuse, bankruptcy, medical school, drugs and suicide. There's even a shipwreck, an Ironman competition and three marriages.

It's the kind of story, if Hollywood ever got its hands on it, in which you just know Kate Winslet would play the role of Roche.

It was the subject of Roche's 1999 memoir, Bent not Broken, in which she wrote, "My life is one of dreams lost and found again, of abandonment and rediscovery. There is pain, but there is also a lot of laughter and light."