Patricia McLean The Hope Fault by Tracy Farr (Freemantle Press, 2017), 340 pp., $37 Tracy Farr the New Zealand novelist is not to be confused with Tracey Farr, unpublished American poet, but New Zealand-based Tracey Farr, it seems to me, is a better poet than she is a novelist. The narrative of her second novel, […]
Radical Acts of Transgression
Vaughan Rapatahana Black Marks on the White Page, edited by Witi Ihimaera and Tina Makereti (Penguin Random House, 2017), 336 pp., $40 You can certainly judge a book by its cover, in this case. On the dust jacket of Black Marks on the White Page, starkly smudged in black and white, James Ormsby has depicted […]
A Small Girl Fighting for Space
Elizabeth Heritage The Earth Cries Out by Bonnie Etherington (Penguin Random House NZ, 2017), 285 pp., $38 The Earth Cries Out is the story of young Kiwi girl whose family moves from Nelson to Irian Jaya (now known as West Papua). It is written by Bonnie Etherington, a young New Zealand author who, when she […]
A Stormy Time in our History
Michael Morrissey Red Herring by Jonothan Cullinane (HarperCollins, 2016), 306 pp., $36.99 Red Herring – the title is a brilliantly punning metaphor for the colour of New Zealand politics around 1951 – is a political mystery thriller. Its central protagonist is Johnny Malloy, an ex-communist and war veteran turned private detective, an appropriately tough fellow […]
Death Listens to Muzak in McDonald’s
Robert McLean Blood Ties: New and selected poems 1963–2016 by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman (Canterbury University Press, 2017), 168 pp., $25; Tender Girl by Lisa Samuels (Dusie Press, 2015), 198 pp., $34 Jeffrey Paparoa Holman’s Blood Ties: New and selected poems 1963–2016 is a career-spanning collection, the earliest poem being one that Holman wrote for his […]
A Mixed Bag
Christine Johnston As Much Gold as an Ass Could Carry by Vivienne Plumb, with illustrations by Glenn Otto (Split/Fountain Publishing, 2017), 232 pp., $38 This enticing volume, with its intriguing title, showcases Vivienne Plumb’s previously published work. Including short stories, poems, prose poems, a novella and a play script, it represents a retrospective exhibition of her […]
The Golden Doldrums of the Wairarapa
Tim Jones Star Sailors by James McNaughton (Victoria University Press, 2017), 487 pp., $35 Star Sailors is a New Zealand science fiction novel set in 2045. It’s in the sub-genre known as climate change fiction, or ‘cli-fi’: a sub-genre that has been around both internationally and locally for many years, with Kim Stanley Robinson among […]
Mysterious Metropolis
Antony Millen City of Circles by Jess Richards (Sceptre/Hachette, 2017), 352 pp., $29.99 Halfway through City of Circles I was struck by a personal response, phrased in a way I had never previously articulated. The story made me think about how difficult it is to love with a broken heart, but also to wonder, is […]
Shaggy Wolverine Story
Michael Morrissey The Straight Banana by Tim Wilson (Victoria University Press, 2016), 202 pp., $30 Novelist Elmore Leonard once laid down 10 rules for writing. Rule Number 5 was: ‘You are allowed no more than two or three exclamation points per 100,000 words.’ Curiously enough, some patient soul has counted the exclamation points in his […]
Stoats of Otago
Lindsay Rabbitt Enclosures 2 by Bill Direen (William Direen, 2016), 190 pp., $29 The reconstructed skull* on the front cover of Enclosures 2 is a fair signifier of the book’s content: floating in negative space, the skull’s fissures give the impression of coastlines, continents, isles, waterways. Also Life. And Death. For two decades Bill Direen, […]
Libertines and Wowsers
Nicholas Reid The March of the Foxgloves by Karyn Hay (Esom House Press, 2016), 400 pp., $84 (limited hardback edition), $32 (paperback) Never judge a book by its cover. This is a very reasonable rule to which I usually adhere. But in the case of Karyn Hay’s The March of the Foxgloves, it was very […]
Department Store Detective
Felicity Murray Lifting by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press, 2016), 202 pp., $30 Cutty’s department store, oldest department store in the country, icon of Wellington city, epitome of tradition, class, gentility, a bygone age, is – shock, gasp – closing. It’s just a shop, you may well think, but no, for Wellington where this novel […]
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