Owen Marshall

The Deck by Fiona Farrell (RHNZ Vintage, 2023), 304pp, $37

Fiona Farrell is one of our foremost writers, accomplished in fiction, drama, poetry and essay, and as a scholar. All of these talents are necessarily employed in The Deck, her most challenging work yet, both for her and for readers. The Deck is a powerful and layered book, a cross-genre piece bringing together the past and the present, fact and fiction, poetry and statistics, escape and confrontation. Farrell never writes the same book twice and this is further proof of that.

Even the title itself has a teasing multiplicity of meaning. On receiving a copy of the book, I thought, what deck? After reading it, I was able to see various references and connotations: the decking on which the holidaymakers gather to tell stories, the deck from which life deals cards to us all, and of course, most significantly, the connection to the title of Giovanni Boccaccio’s classic volume The Decameron, which was written in fourteenth century Italy shortly after the horrors of the Black Death. [Read more…]

James Norcliffe

Eddy, Eddy by Kate de Goldi (Allen & Unwin, 2022), 288pp, $29.99

Kate de Goldi’s scintillating novel Eddy, Eddy, tells the story of the eponymous Eddy Smallbone, 19, a school dropout and now part-time dog walker and shift worker at New World and his journey through the last months of 2012, two years after the first earthquake that shook Christchurch.

This book’s title is instructive: Eddy suggests swirl and turmoil, while the repetition suggests both exasperation and a plea. Eddy’s life is swirling. He is an orphan, living with his uncle, always referred to as Brain, one of a quartet of mildly eccentric friends and relatives who keep a kindly eye on him. Although he had been a potential scholarship candidate, personal issues compelled him to leave school for menial work; his love life has fallen apart and there are clearly deeper issues that, in the meantime, remain diffuse and unexplained. This mystery provides the subtle tension underlying the plot, and the reveal, when it comes, is more of a sad confirmation than a rug-pull, but striking for all of that. Foregrounded are day-to-day events and the dance of off-beat characters, with their rich and fascinating conversations and minor obsessions. [Read more…]

Tina Shaw

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (Text Publishing, 2022), 320pp, $38

I first read the Paper Cage in manuscript form when judging the 2022 NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize, for which it was shortlisted. It went on to win the Michael Gifkins Text Prize for an Unpublished Novel and Tom Baragwanath received a generous advance and publication by Australian company Text Publishing. So, it’s a crime novel that’s had a fine start to life. [Read more…]

Gina Cole

Aljce in Therapy Land by Alice Tawhai (Lawrence & Gibson, 2022), 282pp, $25

Aljce In Therapy Land is a funny take on the dark and upsetting subject of workplace bullying. It is dedicated to everyone who has ever been bullied at work or bullied and controlled in any way by anyone. There is also a mad neighbour, an online romance and many marijuana-fuelled existential conversations.  [Read more…]