“Over my lifetime I have given most things a crack when presented with the opportunity,” Susan Devoy writes in her funny and fascinating new biography, Dame Suzy D: My Story.  

And she does have one of the most amazingly varied résumés you’re likely to encounter. From self-described ‘working-class girl’ to Dame, Race Relations Commissioner to reality TV star, unbeatable squash world number one to all-too-relatable mother of four, she’s attempted and accomplished more than most.

It makes her a fascinating mass of contradictions. And in Dame Suzy D she demonstrates another contrast to add to the mix - a likeable self-effacing wit and warmth to temper the trademark forthrightness and steely courtside determination most New Zealanders traditionally associate with her.

Her unprecedented life can make things a little unfocused at times. One minute, she’s vividly describing the pressures and burdens of her demanding Race Relations role, and the toll it took on her mental health, with plenty of raw emotion. Then, suddenly, she’s trying life as a kiwifruit packer for a season, seemingly just for a laugh. It’s scarcely believable that her life encompassed such crazy swings in such short time frames. 

The reading experience can be equally haphazard. When Devoy describes international trips with her family – and there are quite a few trips - it reads a bit like getting a letter from your mum. Then, in other moments, Dame Suzy D bristles with an earnest purpose and fervour, especially when she talks about inequality in women’s sport.

Jarring stories about gross disparities she experienced – like being paid five times less prize money than her 80s number one squash male counterpart, the infamous Jahangir Khan – remind you of what a trailblazer she really was, given the times.

Some of the best moments in the book come when she shares her fierce passion to speed up the levelling of the playing field, like this example:

“Many women over the decades have paved the way for change, and the current rise in female sports gives us the opportunity to continue to address some of the long-held discrimination against female athletes. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it will have flow-on effects in other walks of life.”

Ultimately that is the achievement here: that her endearingly outspoken ‘call-a-spade-a-spade’ personality isn’t watered down. She’s all too happy to be unvarnished and unrepentant throughout and Dame Suzy D is all the better for it. 

While we’re on the subject of honesty though, some more squash stories from her playing days wouldn’t have gone astray. In a book full of paradoxes, one of the strangest is that she spends so little time comparatively talking about her experiences playing the game that made her famous. It seems a missed opportunity to not look back on this period more often with a modern lens.

It’s a small gripe though, because this is unquestionably a life story worth sharing, one that truly does seem stranger than fiction. Above all, she remains a real ‘character’ throughout, a quintessentially New Zealand personality, entertainingly droll and down-to-earth, despite her iconic world conquering sporting pedigree.

Reviewed by Chris Long