Landfall Review Online

New Zealand books in review

The Culture of Concealment

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Lynn Jenner

Chosen Boys by Petra Molloy (Escalator Press, 2019), 340 pp., $30

In the author’s words, Chosen Boys ‘deals with the sexual abuse of a seven-year-old and the effects on him, his family and community. It’s about the culture of concealment in the Church. It’s also about the resilience of a people, when their lives are being destroyed by the betrayal of the Church in whom they trusted.’1

Jack, the boy in question, is abused by Father Bane, whose name is an old English word meaning scourge, ruin, death, plague or destruction, a poison that causes death. (This language play is a typical Molloy touch.) It is made plain in Chosen Boys that there are many layers of concealment in the lead-up to the abuse, and that other abused boys exist in each place this priest has lived.  [Read more…]

A Quiet Pooled Intelligence 

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Michelle Elvy

Selected Stories by Vincent O’Sullivan (Victoria University Press, 2019), 592 pp., $40

Grove’s face wasn’t injured, as far as you could tell, but it curved in on one side, so that his left temple and jaw were at least an inch further out than his left cheek. Whether he talked or smiled, his lips on that side stayed straight and together, and the right side of his face moved by itself. And there were two deep lines that ran from beside his nostrils almost to the end of his chin. He wasn’t scarred or hideous or funny. You didn’t want to laugh at his face and you didn’t want to say you felt sorry for him. But I can’t remember being in any company with him when people didn’t tend to look at him rather than at anyone else. They wouldn’t let on, but they were absorbed by his dent.

It’s the best possible opening for this collection, and perhaps the best way to frame a review of Vincent O’Sullivan’s Selected Stories. The opening paragraph of ‘Grove’ – a story taken from O’Sullivan’s 1978 collection, The Boy, The Bridge, The River – sets the tone and progression of this collection, which spans nearly forty years of short stories. It also tells us to pay attention to the obvious and not-so-obvious details of the characters we encounter – that each individual deserves a second, or third, or many-times-more look. Finally, this opening paragraph suggests that looking at characters might mean, also, looking closely at how they look at each other, how they are viewed by other characters. The art of observation highlights our flaws, our idiosyncrasies – also our connections, our warmth. We’re all in this story together, O’Sullivan seems to say.  [Read more…]

A Slow Entanglement

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Arihia Latham

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press, 2019), 323 pp., $35

This is a story of whānau and the ties that bind us beyond life; that hold tight through our whakapapa. It is a story of the sea, of its life-giving and life-taking ability, which spans from a baby rocking in salty water in the belly of his māmā on a boat, to the ocean stealing away what’s left, spitting out reluctant shapes, offering isolation and comfort in its crash and lull. This is Auē.

This novel didn’t initially pull me in, perhaps because the trope of the orphaned boy felt too familiar; or perhaps because of the title, warning me that it could be a difficult read. The suggestion of gangs and violence felt like dangerous territory when telling Māori history. But as I persevered, the characters hooked me in the puku and wouldn’t let go. [Read more…]

We Contain Multitudes

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Octavia Cade

The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (Little Hook Press, 2019), 264pp., $21.50

There is a history of speculative fiction exploring how humans engage with the environment, and it’s a theme that’s coming to the fore as the effects of climate change become ever more apparent. It’s a way of exploring consequence. What happens if we fail to limit carbon emissions? What happens if we let radioactive waste mutate organisms? There’s a subset of speculative fiction, however, that plays with something different entirely: what we are, as opposed to what we do. That subset is a frequent user of fungus. Jeff VanderMeer uses fungal noir in his Ambergris series, and Sascha Stronach has done the same in The Dawnhounds. In both, fungus is a strong element of setting, taking over cities and organisms, where the emphasis on fungal biology has led to significant alterations to the human body and how it is perceived. [Read more…]

Scents and Sensibility

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Elizabeth Heritage

Scented by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Random House, 2019), 256 pp., $38

This pukapuka made me feel really hard done by. The core premise of Laurence Fearnley’s novel Scented is that the smellscape of the world we live in is as rich, complex and omnipresent as that which we experience by any other sense. I kept stopping to sniff the air while reading and could rarely smell anything at all – let alone analyse the different layers, tones and ingredients of scent. I started to feel that either I was lacking, or was being duped. [Read more…]