Carolyn McCurdie

The Ash, the Well and the Bluebell by Sandra Arnold (Mākaro Press, 2019), 332 pp., $35

Canterbury writer Sandra Arnold is an accomplished contributor to the literary life of Aotearoa New Zealand. Her published work includes flash fiction, short stories, memoir and novels. She was co-founder, with David Howard, of the literary magazine takahē. The Ash, the Well and the Bluebell is her third novel.

The prologue opens the story with a jolt that for New Zealand readers will feel immediate and recent. Lily is enjoying precious moments with her much-loved daughter, Charlie, before Charlie leaves for a new job in Australia. They’re in a café in the centre of Christchurch on 22 February 2011. The date at the head of the chapter warns us. The earthquake leaves Lily in hospital, mind reeling and unable to grasp the fact of Charlie’s death. Among the jumble of nightmare and memory are images of her childhood in the village of Eshwell Bridge in the north-east of England. Chapter One takes us there, to 1955, when Lily is a child. [Read more…]

Brannavan Gnanalingam

Shakti by Rajorshi Chakraborti (Penguin Random House NZ, 2019), 20, 336pp, $36

A common critique of superhero narratives is their inherent fascist tendencies. Superheroes exist in dysfunctional societies, and their powers necessarily exist outside of the law. Obviously, this is because the law in their world is corrupt and those with power can’t be trusted. The superheroes’ vigilantism becomes a way of restoring some sort of moral equilibrium. In many superhero narratives, the consequence of this vigilantism is largely skirted over: writer and reader generally assume, to borrow a line from Dylan, that ‘to live outside the law, you must be honest’. [Read more…]

Ben Brown

The Burning River by Lawrence Patchett (Victoria University Press, 2019), 336 pp., $30

It seems to me that, when you break it down, in the final analysis every story ever told is all about identity. Take this book review for example: starting out with the best of intentions but somewhere along the line, you just wait and see. From McCahon’s I Am to Disneyland, the question is always ‘Ko wai ahau? Who am I?’

Well, guess what. Ko wai koe. Literally, ‘You are water.’

It’s all in the wai. You see that don’t you? Of course you do.

But more than that, this sweet little double entendre underscores the essential precept of tikanga, of the way things are. Tikanga says that we are inseparable from te ao, the physical world of life and light. The Burning River I think suggests that we are inseparable from each other, even when we don’t know it. [Read more…]

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…]