Kay McKenzie Cooke
Pet by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2023), 342pp, $38
In her novel Pet Catherine Chidgey introduces readers to a world where a sense of distress lurks and tugs, and where seeds of suspense planted in the opening pages continue to grow. There is a fascination in the way the storyline is spun that draws you in and keeps you enthralled, even as the ground shifts, threatening to undermine progress towards a denouement. Pet has all the hallmarks of a slow reveal as the narrator, Justine Crieve, looks back in order to forecast a way ahead. The truth will need to be extracted from the weight of a mass of confusion and doubt that has burdened her from the age of twelve: ‘Though I’ve had thirty years to think about it, thirty years to go over every detail. The great dark hulk of it always adrift in me.’ [Read more…]