Brett Lupton Settlers’ Creek, by Carl Nixon 
(Random House, 2010), 330 pp. $29.99. I have been an admirer of Carl Nixon ever since, some years ago, I read his short story ‘My Father Running with a Dead Boy’. Settler’s Creek is Nixon’s second novel and, having read this, I want very much to seek out […]

Tim Jones Mr Allbones’ Ferrets: An historical pastoral satirical scientifical romance, with mustelids, by Fiona Farrell (Vintage, 2007), 217 pp., $27.99. Growing up in rural Southland, I was aware of a powerful and supposedly benevolent body called the Acclimatisation Society, which – so I gathered – had the job of ensuring that river, stream and field […]

Dieter Riemenschneider I Am Always With You, by Philip Temple (Random House, 2006), 447 pp., $36.99; Hand Me Down World, by Lloyd Jones (Penguin NZ, 2010), 313 pp., $40.00. The title of this review might very well have been ‘Two Men in Berlin’, since the writing of both novels was obviously closely connected to their […]

Chris Else August, by Bernard Beckett (Text Publishing, 2011, $30.00) A book that is billed as ‘a philosophical thriller’ poses unusual questions. We don’t judge science fiction by the accuracy of its science. Nor do we require historical novels to adhere strictly to the facts. In both cases, perhaps, we would want the writer to […]

Vaughan Rapatahana Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, by Tina Makereti (Huia Publishers, 2010) Kia ora mo tenei pukapuka Tina. Ka nui te pai tau pakiwaitara kei konei.  I enjoyed this initial collection of tales by Tina Makereti. It’s refreshing, rarely boring, easy to read. The stories rebound and resound with echoes from one to the […]

Christine JohnstonHokitika Town, by Charlotte Randall (Penguin Books, 2011, $30) It’s a long time since I read a novel where the narrative voice is the outstanding and most memorable feature, perhaps even the whole point of the literary enterprise.  Charlotte Randall has created a likeable, though at times obtuse, first-person narrator, a Maori boy, making […]

Graeme LayThe Conductor, by Sarah Quigley (Vintage, 2011), 303 pp., $39.99. Sarah Quigley’s fourth novel opens with a small but ominous harbinger. In the spring of 1941, the renowned Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich is informed by his friend, music teacher Ivan Sollertinsky, that two German diplomats have cancelled suit orders with Leningrad’s most reputable tailor. […]

Mia WatkinsWulf, by Hamish Clayton (Penguin NZ, 2011), 240 pp., $30.00 Time escapes Wulf, leaps and bounds and bubbles and weaves between the words on the pages. This is no armchair narrative, you don’t get to cosy-up in a warm blanket sipping hot chocolate, a semi-conscious passive recipient of a predictable, orderly narrative. Thinking is […]

Anne Kennedy Fosterling, by Emma Neale (Random, 2010, $29.99) I’ve read two New Zealand novels recently that have on their covers walls of dense bush with arch-shaped escape-routes in them, through which can be seen the light at the end of the tunnel. First, Patrick Evans’ superb, mimetic Gifted, and now this layered and original […]

Jenny Powell Weathered Bones, by Michele Powles (Penguin Books, 2009), 299 pp., $25.99 This is one of the few books I have had dreams about. The sea in it ended up permeating my nights: images of a blue-black seething ocean — repetitious, insistent images that are as compelling to the reader as they are to […]

Lisa Samuels Kingdom of Alt, Jack Ross (Titus Books, Auckland, 2010) 240 pp., $45.00 If Jack Ross has not read J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, someone should get it for him. Kingdom of Alt has some of the serial agonistic airs of that work, but it is  more dispersed: Kingdom of Alt is a collection […]

Siobhan Harvey From Under the Overcoat, Sue Orr (Vintage, 2011), 348 pp., $29.99 Clothes: whether it’s the beret worn by Anna Sergeevna in Chekhov’s ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’, or the beige raincoat donned by the protagonist of Lorrie Moore’s ‘How to be an Other Woman’, or Nie Chuanqing’s ‘blue gown of lined silk’ […]