Love her or hate her, you will enjoy Sadie! Sadie Smith (not her real name) is undercover. She’s out to find the dirt on the eco-radicals; and if she can’t find some, she’ll get creative. In a small remote village, the Moulinards’ commune on a scrappy piece of land, overseen by the charismatic Pascal (ex-Paris, wealthy lad living it rough and oldest friend to Sadie’s hapless ‘boyfriend’ loser film-maker Lucien). Pascal, along with his selected idealistic brotherhood are hanging on the words of modern day hermit Bruno Lacombe. Bruno lives in a cave and emails the group his missives on human history, the superiority of the Neanderthal, the earth’s vibrations, and other intellectual musings of a madman and a sage. The concerns of the local farmers and the newly arrived eco-radicals are the same. Industry is moving in with its pumping of water and singular crop fixation. There have been isolated incidents of sabotage. And Sadie’s boss wants the commune gone. Sadie's job is to get inside and find out what they will do next. And if there is no to-do list, entice some action. Sadie arrives into a dry hot summer in her little white rental, enough alcohol to keep cool and then some, and is ‘waiting’ for Lucien on his family’s estate — a rundown dwelling now rigged up with sensors, high speed internet and other spy gadgetry. Sadie’s reading Bruno’s emails, but not getting a lot of information about a plot to take out the new infrastructure. What she is getting is a fascination for Bruno and his sideways take on humanity. She’s ready to meet Pascal and gain his trust. It helps, or so Sadie wants us to believe, that she is gorgeous. She easily gains his trust, more to do with her set-up relation with Lucien than anything she particularly does, and Pascal’s never ending ability to mansplain. The women at the commune have different ideas about their assigned roles, more akin to the old patriarchy than new ideas. It doesn’t take Sadie long to get offside with them. She’ll have to be more careful to avoid their ire and their mistrust. So what is Rachel Kushner up to here? In Creation Lake, she’s pointing a very cynical finger at our attempts to save ourselves. Here comes corruption and ego in several guises, here is the power of ideas that can alter lives, here come belief systems that fall flat, and there go the Neanderthals walking with us still (according to Bruno), and here is the biggest fraud of the lot: Sadie Smith, who will be unequivocally changed by her encounter with the Moulinards and Bruno Lacombe. This is a clever, funny book with an unreliable (and unlikeable) narrator at its centre, with ideas leaping from the absurd to the strangely believable, and a cast of characters who get to walk on to the stage and play their bit parts to perfection, with references to ‘types’ as well as particular possibly recognisable individuals. Creation Lake deals with big issues — the climate, politics, industry, and power — with a playfulness and Intelligence that ricochet much like the bullets in Sadie’s guns. It encompasses ideas about where we came from and where we might be going with wry wit but also a serious nod to our current dilemmas. It’s not all doom, and Kushner may be giving us the opportunity to leave our hermit caves and look up. Although this may be a riff on the riff. And cynicism may be the winner after all — unless radical social change can capture Sadie's imagination at 4am. You’ll have to decide. 

The Margaret Mahy Book of the Year is the most coveted award for children’s books in Aotearoa. Every year, from many excellent entries, one book is chosen that flies above the rest. This year the winner was a household name and a popular author with younger readers, often winning children’s choice awards, a bestselling author here and overseas, and a popular guest author at festivals and schools. Her love for horses propelled her to write 33 pony stories — some of which were pony club dramas (one became a hit TV series in the UK), while others were more nuanced tales of girls, horses, history and overcoming an issue. As a bookseller, I’ve read a few and they are immaculate in pitch and skill. Yet Nine Girls takes us somewhere new with Stacy Gregg. The author has skin in the game. It’s her childhood, and her journey in te ao Māori which resonates on every page giving this adventure story that extra bite. But it is the protaganist, Titch, who will stay with you. It’s the late 1970s and Dad has been made redundant. It’s time to pack up and move from Remuera to Ngāruawāhia — a culture shock for TItch and her sister, but also the stuff of holidays and relatives with tall tales. One tall tale takes hold: Gold! Buried gold buried somewhere on their ancestral  land. Gold with a tapu on it. Titch and her cousins think it might be time to find it. Their plans aren’t great and they are worried about being cursed, especially as more secrets come to light. What is it about the past and her family? As the past is unpicked, this is the Waikato, Titch comes to understand the complexities of relationships in this small town, piecing together information with the help of an unexpected creature (Gregg weaves in a talking eel) — a creature that is not exactly trustworthy, but definitely a source of fascination. The relationship between Titch and Paneiraira (Pan) reminded me of other fictional child/animal bond scenarios and it gives Nine Girls a wonderful and unexpected narrator to relay history and family secrets. While Pan may be a source of information, it is Tania who will become a firm friend and open a door into a new world for Titch, teaching her more about herself than she could ever have imagined. This is a coming-of-age story about family, culture and friendship; it takes on big issues like racism (the personal and the political — the protests of the Tour surface) and the emotional challenges of facing illness and death. In all these things, Titch discovers herself, and her own culture, coming home as has Stacy Gregg. And as ever, great story-telling. 

Back in the 1990s, working in a bookshop in Wellington, I came across a novel that intrigued me. It was written in verse, by an author that many now  known for his epic second novel, A Suitable Boy. Vikram Seth’s first novel was The Golden Gate. It was set in San Francisco in the 1980s and revolved around the lives of a group of successful 20-somethings in the burgeoning Silicon Valley. It’s not so much the content that has stuck with me, but the mathematical wonder of this novel. It is written in iambic tetrameter, and — as I have just now researched — composed of 590 Onegin stanzas. This formal structure took a little adjusting to, but I remember finding the rhythm of the novel within a few pages and noticing how the verse style adjusted my way of reading, making me read this novel in its very own way. That discovery of the novel in verse continues to fascinate, and when it works, it is brilliant. A more recent novel that comes to mind was the award-winning The Long Take by Robin Robertson. This is a startlingly affecting novel, an epic narrative poem about brutality and the search for kindness — a book that I will never stop recommending. I’m not sure what it is about a verse novel that appeals so much. I think it is the precision, those sharp ideas and carefully chosen words. It is the skill, the craft that poetry demands; particularly in the novel form where, like The Golden Gate, the rules are so important but the strict rhythm, once you, as the reader, are in synch you are unaware of — the content and form become seamless. Or The Long Take, where imagery meets landscape meets emotion so beautifully on the page with an intensity that surprises. And, for me, I think it is the joy of the text on the page. The space that alights around these stanzas, that says I am poetry (but not a prose poem) and can confound your expectations of the novel and what it can be. So, in the spirit of Poetry Day, I suggest expanding your horizons with a new poet or poetic form, or just giving poetry a try. It’s mind-bogglingly various. It can be serious, dramatic, emotional, confronting, and soothing, as well as amusing and ironic, and a combination of all of these; and then there are the many forms to discover. You never know where it might lead to in your reading explorations. Have a look at this week's Volume Focus for a selection of novels in verse on our shelves right now (maybe your verse-novel journey starts here!).

In a week of twists and turns and then a few  more twists and turns (!), one is in complete need of dessert. It was a Monday, but the weekend had been far from relaxing. There were some aging apples waiting for an enlightened moment, and plenty of staples to take in any direction. While the days are warmer, the evenings are still cool and something cosy and simple was front of thought. Apple pie, of course! But pie needs good pastry. And I knew where to find it: straight to my copy of Julia Busuttil Nishimura's A Year of Simple Family Food to find an excellent sweet short pastry recipe. There are a few options, but I decided on the faster 30-minute resting time. I've been a fan of this cook's pie recipes, both sweet and savoury for several years, since her first recipe book, Ostro (a recipe book that is well used in our kitchen). I've made her leek and potato pie numerous times. Her recipe has mozzarella, but works well with other cheeses, too. One of my favourite pies is in A Year of Simple Family Food. The Pumpkin Pie is delicious — hearty and rich (>>you can see my version on this Whisk post). Busuttil Nishimura's recipes range in time and complexity, but always have at their heart a love of food underpinned by great flavours and the joy of sharing and eating together. They are generous and usually arranged seasonally, so perfect for us with her Melbourne location. With her Maltese heritage, love of Italian food, and the influence of her Japanese partner, the food ranges in flavours and styles. I'm revisiting how much I enjoy her cookbooks because she has a new one, Good Cooking Every Day, out on September. And it looks like a cracker. This one has a focus on occasions, but, in typical Julia style, this is relaxed and simple, abounding with generous and tasty food. Whether it's an informal get together with friends, the joy of family occasions, garden parties, or more formal celebrations, you'll be pleased to have her enthusiasm and wonderful recipes to hand. If you haven't discovered  the pleasure of Julia Busuttil Nishimura's food you have a treat ahead of you, and if you have, then celebrate the new cookbook, due in September. >>Pre-order now.

Cruelty is never too far from the surface of Rachel Cusk's novel, Second Place. M owns an idyllic home on the marshland with her second husband Tony. They have rescued the land and built a home for themselves in this remote and abundant place, and share it, that is the cottage—the Second Place—by invitation. M has been fascinated by the art of L since an early encounter with his work in Paris after a nightmarish experience on a train, an experience that the reader is never fully informed about, yet the spectacular—a devil, metaphorical or real—remains as a threat throughout. So when M, after years of obsession with L, finally convinces the artist to come and stay, to retreat and paint, her expectations, as you can anticipate, are high. Her expectations of fulfilment, creatively and psychologically, are painfully ridiculous in a middle-aged, privileged sense. What does she expect from this special bond with L? When L arrives—by private jet of a friend’s cousin—with said friend in tow, the beautiful and young Brett, M is miffed. You can’t help but feel little empathy for her. Her desires are unreasonable and ethically questionable, let alone uncomfortable. M’s obsession with a self-seeking, seemingly loathsome and churlish fading artist is misguided at best. Add to the mix M’s daughter Justine and her German boyfriend Kurt, arrived from Berlin as their jobs pack in due to a downward economy (and Covid—although this isn’t mentioned by Cusk), and the perfect pressure cooker for a melodrama is set. The novel is told as to ‘Jeffers’ by letter. We never meet Jeffers and have little knowledge of who Jeffers is and why he plays such an important role as confidant to M. What we can decipher later, from the afterword, is that the novel is inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan’s memoir Lorenzo in Taos, published in 1932 (there’s a contemporary review in the New York Times archive) about D.H.Lawrence’s stay at her artist retreat in New Mexico. Here too, is a story of obsession and delusion, and letters to Robinson Jeffers about Mabel’s experience with the Lawrences. Yet you don’t need to know this to find the writing compelling, the prose poised and the content both farcical (the storyline of Kurt deciding to be a writer and his ‘reading’ is priceless) and unsettling. It will make you squirm. This is a novel about ownership—who owns whom—and the power or agency of one over the other or the ideas of the other. M will come to despise L and L already despises M, and sets out to destroy her. Yet his ability to do so is compromised by his own weakness, according to M. And here lies the dilemma: the narrator. You can’t like her. Her complete preoccupation with herself and her property, whitewashed, much like the walls of the cottage, with a veneer of care, is revealed in her asides to Jeffers and by her knowing attitude about the creative process within the isolation of someone basically just talking to themselves. Yet, the novel reverberates within its cliches and set-ups to bring the reader to the eye-watering conclusion that Cusk has cleverly played a game of cards where most of the best cards are hers—and the reader is in second place.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated from German by Michael Hofmann)

What is this idea of utopia? Or fortune? Or a moment that passes ungraspable? In Jenny Erpenbeck’s International Booker Winner, Kairos, the personal and the political are intertwined. It's the late1980s and the GDR is on its last legs. The society, with its face to the East but its ears and eyes impacted by the sounds, smells and occasional taste of the West, is unravelling. Katharina and Hans meet on a crowded bus. When the former leaves the bus, he follows. It’s raining and the underpass gives them shelter. Katharina is 19, a student, intelligent and attractive. Hans, a writer, is married and in his 50s. It’s not his first infidelity, but it is her first love. Whatever way you view this relationship, the power lies with Hans. The cards he holds control the situation, and even when his wife temporarily kicks him out, all remains on his terms. The borrowed apartment is an idyll — a moment of pretend. Hans will always return to his wife, and his loveless marriage. The duplicity is startling. On the family summer holiday, Katharina is close at hand in the country awaiting Hans’s bike rides and afternoon retreats from his family. She waits for him, dresses, and behaves as he instructs. And this obedience to his desires, despite her misgivings, only accelerates over the following years as the relationship becomes increasingly chaotic, with Hans’s manipulation and violence at its centre. What draws them together is a moment, and what will pull them asunder is that also, a moment. For it is Katharina’s supposed betrayal that strikes them both down. The moment that slipped by cannot be grasped again. And here, in the tumult, is East Germany. Erpenbeck lets us travel back — walk the streets, visit the cafes and theatres — to the fascination of a possibility which became a lie. Here is the idea of a better society, stretched taut. For here, look askance, we see the manipulation and the malice of political structures that fail to live up to the dream. Erpenbeck gives us an allegorical novel of ordinary lives and an intense relationship. Kairos is a book of two boxes. Archives. Notes, receipts, journals and diaries. Cassette tapes (of accusations), books and records. Threaded into the novel are authors, plays, music, architecture; shaping and forming our awareness of place and time. The first box/section is a meeting of minds and hearts, of a relationship with possibilities and the hopes of a society that is comfortable in its own skin. The second, an awareness that all is not right — deceit and despair, and recklessness, have created a chaos which is all-encompassing, personally and politically. The novel draws you in, despite your misgivings about the relationship, and Erpenbeck’s language is emotionally taut. There is a crispness in her sentences, reflecting the excitement of this new thing. As chaos ensues, Erpenbeck again uses language, tone and pace, to best advantage to relay a bone-weariness, but also the disturbance and confrontation of revolt, and the opposing inclination to hang tightly on to the status quo. Here the passages are longer, the sentence structure more convoluted, and doubt is creeping along the lines. The final pages are ambiguous, but surprisingly satisfying.

Chicanes by Clara Schulmann (translated from French by Naima Rashid, Natasha Lehrer, Lauren Elkin, Ruth Diver, Jessica Spivey, Jennifer Higgins, Clem Clement and Sophie Lewis) 

Chicanes is a collection of short pieces about voice and women’s experience. Schulmann dips and pivots, captures, and lets fly. She delves into literature and classics, art and film, exploring how women use their voice and how they are used (or stigmatised) by their voice. Her digressions move against each other building questions and ideas under the chapter headings ‘On/Off’, ‘Breathing’, ‘Fatigue’, ‘Overflowing’, ‘Speed’, and ‘Irritation’. The essays and snippets are both personal and critical (feminist theory and art critique are bundled here nicely, without being too pointy-headed; in other words, you can take it as you find it or investigate further), angry, and amusing. Taking her watching (cinema) and reading (essays and fiction), Schulmann drives us, never in a straight line, so we can observe her thinking about voice — its physical, emotional and intellectual power — and its cultural significance. How are women through their voice portrayed in films? Are they mostly silent/ screaming/ husky or simpering? How do women use their voices to protest and complain about inequality? Is it subtle? A pointed yet subtle change in mode or a tirade of small irritations (no time, too many family demands, commonplace sexism at work)? There are so many ideas packed into these short pieces, and they point in further directions and diversions. She quotes writers and draws up a map by which we can navigate her thinking out loud — about voice and in voice. In French the title is Zizanies which translates as discord or disharmony. When we say the word ‘voice’ we are likely to think of harmony or articulation. Yet if we think about the idea of voice as Schulmann has in the context of gender, discord is more than appropriate. The English language title, Chicanes: a sharp double bend, likely with some obstacle; is an apt descriptor also. Interestingly, there are several translators (one for each section), each with their ‘own voice’ interpreting Clara Schulmann’s interpretations. This observation by the author of language and tone (voice) by other writers/artists and then in turn via interpretation gives readers in English another level of voice. And then, in turn, we use our voice in its imperfect way, to reflect our emotional and cultural condition. The book is immersive and curious in the best possible way.

I have most, if not all, of Ali Smith’s novels on my shelf. I’ve been reading her for twenty years plus some, because she’s brilliant. It’s seems an appropriate time to revisit her seasonal quartet, which starts with Autumn, heads through Winter , to Spring and Summer. So, in keeping with the temperature gauge, Winter lands us in a cold house where things have gone slightly awry, but like all seasons things will turn.

Ali Smith's Winter is dazzling. The second in her ‘Seasons’ quartet, draws richness out of desolation. Strangely, the novel opens with Sophia, lonely and retired, conversing with a detached head. Not too far along we meet Arthur, her son, who has just fallen out with his girlfriend Charlotte, who has accused him of being a fraud and politically disconnected. Charlotte, aggrieved by his uselessness, has drilled holes through his laptop, taken off and taken over his ‘art and nature’ blog, posting false and possibly libelous material. Arthur (Art as he is affectionately known to his family) has to travel to Cornwall to visit Sophia for Christmas, and he is meant to be arriving with Charlotte. In desperation, he finds a stand-in, Lux, who he pays a thousand pounds to pretend to be Charlotte for the long weekend. Arriving at Sophia's home, they find Sophia sitting huddled in layers of clothes in a cold house, not quite herself. Lux takes it upon herself to make Art contact Iris, his aunt. And here the novel starts to unfold. The fraught relationship between the sisters, one the seemingly conservative businesswoman, the other the 'wild child' activist who chained herself to the fence at Greenham Common, still protesting and aiding the disempowered. The conversations between the sisters reveal much to Arthur about his upbringing. Yet more is revealed to Lux, the stranger in the mix, who Sophia seems to trust. Lux is a recent migrant, studying English literature before she ran out of money and now making do with low-pay jobs and sleeping anywhere she isn’t noticed. Her brief interlude in this winter Christmas family tale is inspired - a catalyst for change. Ali Smith draws us in with cool, icy precision - Winter, like the season, is deep, dark and melancholic when we enter the novel - yet she gives us love and hope, and lets us see the green shoots waiting for the snow to melt. Like Autumn, Winter is a book about time and place, about now - refugees, fires in substandard towers - about what binds families and also what splits them asunder. Smith can take a simple series of events with a cast of few and tell us so much about ourselves, and the culture (art, literature, language) and choices that shape us. And she does it with intelligence, wit and style.

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, classicist and translator. In Wrong Norma, variously described as prose poems or prose pieces, she is confronting writing and ideas. She allows thoughts to take the lead, to follow the other, in sometimes bewildering, sometimes illogical ways to paces where juxtapositions and contradictions segue into each other with a wonderful ‘wrongness’. And what is the idea of wrong? Her description of this project (as most of her published works are: she makes a handmade book, which is then produced as a facsimile by her publisher) is elusive and offers a brief explanation: “...a collection of wrings about different things..” And this collection is wide-ranging in subject matter, from swimming to snow, Joseph Conrad and Emily Dickinson, riffs on Socrates and violence, observations on poverty and displacement, a piece of writing by the Sky, in fact a week-long journal, my favourite being a conversation on Wednesday with Godot, and an image essay reimagining the meeting of the German philosopher Heidigger and the Jewish writing Paul Celan in 1966. Re-reading any one of these prose pieces is submerging. (The idea of suubmerging also links strongly to the first piece on swimming, so desire to be in water, out of air). They are endlessly curious, striving forward, to what one is never completely sure, and this makes them compelling. You return to discover something new and surprising each time, and it makes you ask questions rather than look for answers. In this work, Anne Carson seems to be asking questions and there are these wonderful scrap paper interludes between each piece. Some with merely a faintly typed comment or questions. Others that are dialogue, questions and answers, the questions often repeated, the answers varied — are they questions put to a host of visitors or characters or the author talking to herself? These repetitive questions include: “ Do you like the films of Eric Rohmer?”, followed by “Do you like jam?”, as if asking these simultaneously is a given. The other question that pops up repeatedly is “ What is yor philosophy of time?” With answers variously being: “I’m quite sure we’ll surrender” to “ how it’s sweet and how it’s moving” and “ a shallow closet with narrow bench and a rope to pull you up”. Are the recipients answering this question or even hearing it? Or are we always in conversation at cross purposes? Many of the text peices are reflecting on the process of writing. What is language, and how does it work? When translation is evoked, what happens to the text, whether this is translating yourself or others? Perspective and observation can be wrong and this wrongness leads to discoveries. Anne Carson calls these pieces wrong and enjoys herself. These is intelligent and playful writing. There is much here to amuse, as well as provoke thinking. But who or what is Norma? There is a reference in one piece to Norma Desmond, a character played in a film by Gloria Swanson, but I wondered if here the translator in Carson comes to the fore. Norma in latin can mean rule or pattern; in Greek, examiner. In an interview with Paris Review, Carson describes writing like seeing and following a fox. “I think about it as something that arrives in the mind, and then gets dealt with if it’s interesting. It’s more like a following of something, like a fox runs across your backyard and you decide to follow it and see if you can get to where the fox lives. It’s just following a track.”

I was drawn to this novel firstly by the cover. Who can resist a typewriter? And then by the description of a story pieced together by encyclopedic entries, typewriter exercises, immigration manual snippets, and snapshot interludes. That it is also published by the interesting and excellent Transit Books and the author is Chilean all added to this one finding a place on my shelf. Ania is a woman, about 40, who is in limbo. She has quit teaching and pet-sits for a bit of cash; her father has remarried and has ‘another family’ — one which Ania feels ousts her from her place as ‘daughter’; and her boyfriend is a remote figure in this story — whether this is her perspective or a reality we never know. And this is what hooks you in — Ania always seems like she is looking in, but never really participating. Her present is something she wishes to escape from and her past haunts her yet draws her back — seems to have a hold on her. This is a story about exile and migration, about worlds cleaved between past and present but inextricably linked. It’s a tale of never quite fitting in — an exploration of what belonging is and whether it can be truly achieved if you are severed from a part of yourself (whether that be literally, as in physical space, or metaphorically, as in a mental state). When Ania's uncle Augustin dies, her father asks her to go to Argentina in his place (he is unable to leave Chile while his wife is convalescing). Crossing the mountains brings back memories of her childhood summers spent with her grandparents and extended family. Every summer she would spend months as the ‘Chilenita’ — her otherness the role cast for her. Yet she was not the only outcast. Nelida (Augustin’s mother), the young bride who came from Italy and never adjusted, spends her days in the cool of her dark room slowly subsiding into madness (or sadness). Augustin wants to escape his home but doesn’t have the courage to abandon his family, so faithfully takes his typing lessons and remains bound to his mother. He is enamoured of his friend Garigilo’s ease of being and infatuated with Ania. The reader is left to pull the threads together about the state of the relationships between these characters. It seems as though something has occurred that has had an impact on all three, yet the action, if there was one, has happened off the pages, beyond the book, and it is only a residue — an unsaid feeling — that circles beneath Ania. Returning to the town, the memories of childhood are both threatening and endearing. Here she has a role, she is the ‘Chilenita’. As she is drawn into the vortex of her own past, she thinks about her family and their life as migrants from Italy. Her childhood memories butt up against her adult knowledge. What allowed her father to find his escape, while Augustin was stuck in time and place? Why did Nelida find it so hard to adjust, and does she carry a similar burden? What is the way forward if you are an exile in your own life or mind? Costamagna’s writing effortlessly moves across characters and time. The typewriter exercise, family snapshots, and encyclopedia entries give the reader pause as well as context and are interwoven between the unfolding narrative at just the right pitch. The Touch System is a beautiful example of fine writing and intriguing themes — a novel that compulsively draws you in where you are at fingertip distance of something palpable. 

Medical misadventure is the stuff of shouty headlines and third-hand anecdote: told, embellished and finger-pointing. We all know mistakes happen in all professions but when it comes to medicine we are quick to blame and sharply condemn. Accountability is fine, but where is the line between personal responsibility and institutional culpability? In Carl Shuker’s A Mistake, his latest novel, we are in crisis mode from the opening pages. A young woman with severe abdominal pain is in A&E — immediate surgery necessary. Elizabeth Taylor, perfectionist, surgeon, 27 hrs on her feet, is in charge and the theatre is ready — the stage set. We know that this is just the beginning of a disaster, and just as we, the reader, are shunted into the midst of this medical freneticism, the author calls cut and the clapper board comes down and we are taken back to 1986 — to the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. The tension is the same, the anticipation and our watchfulness as the audience just as intense. From the small confines of the theatre and looking down through Elizabeth’s eyes at her patient (well, her patient’s body — her awareness of the woman sometimes seems absent), we are suddenly surrounded by the hype and immensity of space science and we are looking up at the sky in wonder — waiting and on tenterhooks as the countdown begins. Shuker cleverly moves between these two situations building an energetic forcefield — and what some readers will feel is a distraction is anything but: technical language — medical in our hospital theatre and astrophysical at NASA mission control, blow-by-blow action — as the surgeons operate and as the NASA team relay information (the as-it-happens variety), the power hierarchy — who’s in charge in each scenario, and the realisation of the error (too late to save anyone). It all piles up around us — the chaos growing. Yet it is what happens next that will reveal more: the consequences for the medical team and for the engineers. Shuker’s Elizabeth Taylor is not the easiest character to slide along with — she’s a perfectionist, dedicated, frustrating, sometimes a lousy friend, brash, dismissive of fools, and is described variously as a brilliant surgeon and a ‘fucking psychopath’. Yet she's loyal, takes the rap for the mistake and, unlike the bureaucratic nightmare she has to work under, she’s not looking for the ‘good’ PR story even when there is wriggle room for her to distance herself from the crisis. But it’s hard to tell whether she has been altered by the mistake or is ultimately only concerned for her own record. Ego, power and success are themes that you expect in this story, and with these comes the flip side: young doctor burnout and suicide, overwork, failed relationships, doubt, recklessness and the unrelenting pressure to be right always. Shuker’s new novel is a departure in style from his previous work. The Method Actors, his first novel, which I read back in 2005, was a big, brilliant, complex book. A Mistake is sharp, scalpel-fine. Shuker has pared this novel back to bone and gristle, letting the reader feel, by being stabbed repeatedly with attack language, reckless behaviour, fleeting insights and snide dialogue, the intensity of this life and this error. The ending is as abrupt as the start and you will be wounded — but intrigued by that scalpel cut. Long after you read this novel you will have a scar to remember it by. 

[Now, also a film! Directed by Christine Jeffs, the film premiered at Tribeca Festival earlier this month. Interview with Jeffs. Releasing Aotearoa in July NZIFF.]

Cruelty is never too far from the surface of the Rachel Cusk novel, Second Place. M owns an idyllic home on the marshland with her second husband Tony. They have rescued the land and built a home for themselves in this remote and abundant place, and share it, that is the cottage—the Second Place—by invitation. M has been fascinated by the art of L since an early encounter with his work in Paris after a nightmarish experience on a train, an experience that the reader is never fully informed about, yet the spectacular—a devil, metaphorical or real—remains as a threat throughout. So when M, after years of obsession with L, finally convinces the artist to come and stay, to retreat and paint, her expectations, as you can anticipate, are high. Her expectations of fulfilment, creatively and psychologically, are painfully ridiculous in a middle-aged, privileged sense. What does she expect from this special bond with L? When L arrives—by private jet of a friend’s cousin—with said friend in tow, the beautiful and young Brett, M is miffed. You can’t help but feel little empathy for her. Her desires are unreasonable and ethically questionable, let alone uncomfortable. M’s obsession with a self-seeking, seemingly loathsome and churlish fading artist is misguided at best. Add to the mix M’s daughter Justine and her German boyfriend Kurt, arrived from Berlin as their jobs pack in due to a downward economy (and Covid—although this isn’t mentioned by Cusk), and the perfect pressure cooker for a melodrama is set. The novel is told as to ‘Jeffers’ by letter. We never meet Jeffers and have little knowledge of who Jeffers is and why he plays such an important role as confidant to M. What we can decipher later, from the afterword, is that the novel is inspired by Mabel Dodge Luhan’s memoir Lorenzo in Taos, published in 1932 (there’s a contemporary review in the New York Times archive) about D.H.Lawrence’s stay at her artist retreat in New Mexico. Here too, is a story of obsession and delusion, and letters to Robinson Jeffers about Mabel’s experience with the Lawrences. Yet you don’t need to know this to find the writing compelling, the prose poised and the content both farcical (the storyline of Kurt deciding to be a writer and his ‘reading’ is priceless) and unsettling. It will make you squirm. This is a novel about ownership—who owns whom—and the power or agency of one over the other or the ideas of the other. M will come to despise L and L already despises M, and sets out to destroy her. Yet his ability to do so is compromised by his own weakness, according to M. And here lies the dilemma: the narrator. You can’t like her. Her complete preoccupation with herself and her property, whitewashed, much like the walls of the cottage, with a veneer of care, is revealed in her asides to Jeffers and by her knowing attitude about the creative process within the isolation of someone basically just talking to themselves. Yet, the novel reverberates within its cliches and set-ups to bring the reader to the eye-watering conclusion that Cusk has cleverly played a game of cards where most of the best cards are hers—and the reader is in second place.

[2021]

The finalists have been announced celebrating the best in Aotearoa’s children’s and teen books. There are some exceptional gems, and some of my personal favourites from the past year have made the cut. A finalist for the Young Adult Fiction Award and the NZSA Award for Best First Book is Tsunami.

This excellent graphic novel from Paekakariki-based illustrator, animator, and comic maker Ned Wenlock deals with bullying, being an outsider, and that awkward transition from childhood to adulthood, with raw honesty and clarity.

Meet Peter, a target for the school bullies. His commitment to truth and being right isn’t always the best fit for your final days of primary school. Being twelve is never easy and, for Peter, life is just too much. Peter’s parents are too busy bickering to notice his despair, his nemesis Gus and his cronies are on his case, and there’s a new girl at school just as much a misfit as him. But she’s a badass, and it’s difficult for Peter to navigate her motives. It all feels overwhelming to Peter — like a tsunami is coming and he isn't sure he can stop it.

Told in Ned’s unique and beautifully pared-down style, Tsunami is a taut page-turner, a coming-of-age story, and nuanced examination of early teenage alienation and the unpredictable consequences of our actions. 
Another example of superb publishing from Earth’s End.

“I wonder if I am allowed to love my sister Baby more than I love the Duce.” Penny ranks her love for her sister against her love of Jesus, Mussolini, Italy and the Fatherland, and compares all this to love for her yellow bear. It’s 1944 in fascist Italy. Penny and Baby, orphaned, have been left in the care of Uncle Wilhelm and Aunt Katchen. They attend school where they sing fascist songs and wear their Piccola Italiana uniforms with pride. At home, their uncle won’t allow them to go to mass and Penny finds herself constantly in trouble for her high spiritedness. Yet, it’s a happy life with her loving Uncle and Aunt, the cousins and the adoring household servants. Penny and Baby have a good life in the country and spend hours in the fields and the woods playing games both imaginative, and punitive, with the village children. Many of their games include penitent actions, as Penny knows that to save their Jewish Uncle from Hell sacrifices have to be made. Many of Penny’s ideas are hilarious and wrong-footed in the way that only children can achieve. The Sky is Falling is a charming, deceptive and ultimately shocking autofiction. Like the sisters, Penny and Baby, filmmaker, artist, and writer Lorenza Mazzetti and her twin were left with their relatives after their mother died. They lived in Italy during the second world war and witnessed the deaths of their family. In the 1950s, having made their way to England, Mazzetti talked her way into The Slade and began making films. She was instrumental as a founder of the Free Cinema and won several prestigious awards before returning to Italy in the late 1950s. (In this new translation, there’s an excellent introduction by Ali Smith about Mazzetti, and a thoughtful critique of this novel). However, Mazzetti’s alter ego Penny is younger, and this makes the end of childhood innocence all the more shocking and enables the author to playfully compose situations which are blackly, hilariously funny. She captures the voice, feelings and thoughts of a chid — their truth, as well as their missteps — with honesty in simple evocative language. The beautifully produced book from Another Gaze Editions includes a series of naive drawings by the author, adding to the air of impending doom. This is a novel about facing down trauma and about exposing the cruel and often arbitrary nature of war. It is carefully calibrated, the tension teased out by Penny’s often riotous behaviour, witty dialogue and sharp observation; yet builds without relief to its inevitable horrific end.

Recently, I was in a reading pit, where the novels I picked up were good or even very good, but not holding my attention. What I needed was something fresh, compelling and altogether distracting. Distracting in that good way; in the ‘I’m not stopping this book until I’m finished’ kind of way. You’ll only get a hmm or a later from me until I close the back cover. I read Kick the Latch in one gulp. Kathryn Scanlan is a genius. From transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, Scanlan has lost nothing of the voice of this woman and her hard life at the track in this moving and fascinating account of the underbelly of racing culture, while simultaneously constructing a novel of tidbits, of scrabble and insight, that jumps alive from the page.  A book of twelve chapters; each chapter a series of succinct episodes which are sharply arranged and rich in texture and character. With titles like ‘Bicycle Jenny’, ‘It Wasn’t His Fault’, ‘I Wouldn’t Barely Break’, ‘Gallon of Blood’, ‘Grandstanding’, ‘A Thousand Pounds of Pressure’ and ‘I Tried To Be a Normal Person’ it’s hard not to be curious.  Every small bit-player has a role to play in revealing the person at the centre, Sonia. Those that help her, break her, and the ones she observes. There are horses, front and centre; and the jockeys that ride well and badly, the owners who cheat and the ones who are okay. There’s the family of track workers who work the circuit, looking out for each other. Sonia, herself, is forthright and compelling. The stories or memories build and bounce off each other. There are times of losing and winning; of destitution and just making a living. There are the horses Sonia trains and the respect that she garners. There is the hard Midwest childhood and the misogyny which spells danger for a young woman determined to kick out on her own. And then there is the fact that this is Scanlan’s novel. It’s a joy to read something that you can’t be sure about. Sonia is a family acquaintance. The interviews were transcribed. Fiction is unreliable, but completely compelling. It’s truthful in a way that often memoir is not. Fiction is a portal and here, as I was submerged into the foreign world of horse trainer, track and the midwest, I was wonderfully distracted in the best possible way.

From the rusting hulks of the industrial era, from China to America, from the bodily functions of blood to the philosophical musings on the allegories of nature and man, Jean-Michel Rabaté’s Rust in the 'Object Lessons' series is a fascinating exploration of this chemical process. Fittingly introducing us to his subject through the most obvious — and what comes to mind immediately (for me at least) when we consider rust — Rabaté describes industrial wastelands and the slow decay of iron as it oxidises creating layers of rust. In a country where corrugated iron and steel infrastructure is synonymous with growth and decline, construction and patched sheds, placing ourselves in the world of the American Dust Bowl or the industrial decline of China or the agricultural wastelands of Australia is more a matter of scale than of foreign territory. In these discussions of rust, Rabaté draws on cultural references in literature and film: Paul Hertneky’s memoir Rust Belt Boy, Wang Bing’s documentary Rust, and an Australian novel by Paddy O'Reilly, The Fine Colour of Rust. Where the reader starts with the idea of decay and decline, Rabaté's analysis moves us to see rust also as a saviour, a surprising and not always negative keeper of time. Using the same method, the conversation moves towards the metaphoric, and here again texts illustrate the author’s thinking. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K is explored as a metaphor for renewal and the land giving, through its richness in iron, a plentiful supply of vegetables — the one the main character is most enamoured of being the red-orange (rust-coloured) pumpkin. As we are drawn into this examination of the notion of rust, oxidation, iron — the ideas of nature in flux — the text moves into deeper discussions of the works of several philosophers: Hegel and Ruskin each have chapters devoted to them, lovingly entitled 'Hegel and the Restlessness of Rust' and 'Ruskin: Nothing Blushes like Rust'. These are thoughtful, lively and witty explorations worth re-reading. Alongside these more academic musings are anecdotal tales from the author’s childhood - his pet turtle features with her rust coloured shell, as does his anaemia and the prescribed medicine of fresh horse’s blood. Another writer explored in response to the ideas of rust and decay is Kafka, and his story ‘Jackals and Arabs’, which features rusty scissors and is also an allegory for his views on the politics and machinations of Zionism and its effect upon the Arab communities of Palestine. In the final parts of the book Rabaté extends the conversation of rust to imperfection, to the flaw that makes an object exquisite — the mark of time, nature and artist — in the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, in the sculptural works of monuments purposely made to alter over time through oxidisation, and in architecture that allows the metal to record time on its facades. The concluding chapter introduces the hopefulness of rust - the discovery of ‘green rust’, an ecological tool that can clean iron-heavy waters and that may lead to technology that will break down waste. Rust is ‘infinitely restless’ in all its guises — physically, emotionally and intellectually — and Rabaté’s musings are infinitely provocative with their eclectic amalgams. Another excellent member of the 'Object Lessons' series. 

Grace keeps centred with martial arts. Jeet Kune Do is her lifesaver, but will it be enough to get her through the summer? Can the words of Bruce Lee hold the world steady when everything is about to change? Grace is eighteen, working cleaning motel rooms, hoping she can save enough to go to uni, worried about her Mum, and watching out for her Gran. She’s a teen with more responsibility than most, and when her childhood friend, Charlie, jumps out of a suitcase (literally!) unexpectedly in front of her, life’s going to get a little more chaotic. Fall back a few years. Charlie and Grace met when they were five and were inseparable. Grace, a small Asian overprotected child, and Charlie, with his achondroplasia, are drawn to each other instantly and share a curiosity for the world and a fierce loyalty to each other. When Charlie’s academic mother gets a posting overseas, Grace feels abandoned, and has never forgiven Charlie for not keeping in touch. Now he’s back, their friendship is rekindled and it’s not what either of them expected. If this was the most complex issue in Grace’s life, no problem. But there are greater mysteries. Frustrated by her mother’s refusal to tell her anything substantial about her birth in Taiwan or her father who died, Grace is determined to find out more. A DNA test comes back with a surprising result, but her Mum’s in a precarious state, especially after Gran dies. Grace wants to confront her, but doesn’t want to tip her over the edge. Mandy Hager’s Gracehopper is brilliant; she writes about PTSD, bullying, relationships, drugs, trauma, and difference with sensitivity and honesty. Grace and Charlie are complex and compelling characters, who you can’t help but like. This is a novel for older teens about love, acceptance and forgiveness. Highly recommended.

Rebecca is the best timid character to grab my attention this year, and Jane Arthur’s Brown Bird has flown straight to a VOLUME Favourite. Why? One: there’s a map! For me, it was reminiscent of my childhood readings and rereadings of Milly Molly Mandy — I loved those maps showing the village (despite being a million miles away from my childhood experience in Aotearoa — no thatched roofs in any direction). This map is more akin to the small avenue of  my childhood. Brown Bird takes place on Mount Street — a small no exit of twelve houses. And each of these houses and their inhabitants will have a part to play. Two: there’s the wonderful Rebecca and the delightful Chester. Rebecca doesn’t like to be noticed and her preference for an excellent day is reading and baking. She’s a whizz at both. The school holidays mean Mum’s at work a lot, and Rebecca visits Tilly, their neighbour. Rebecca has it all planned. She’s got her stack of books ready to go. But then there’s Chester. A ball of energy that disrupts her calm (not that she is really calm — in fact, she’s often quite anxious and overly aware of her surroundings). And Chester has a plan. A plan that involves knocking on doors, meeting people and offering their services doing odd jobs. To Rebecca, Chester doesn’t have a care in the world and is all exuberance. It’s exhausting, nerve-wracking but also exhilarating. Three: Brown Bird is a story about friendship. Chester isn’t like her, but for the first time since they moved to their new place, Rebecca has a friend. They sleep in the tent, eat treats and laugh, but also disagree and work out what’s important. Chester may be full of vim, but his life is far from plain sailing. Four: It’s a spot on depiction of that moment in childhood — Rebecca is eleven — when things change, emotionally and physically. Rebecca’s anxiety and frustration is all there and well articulated, but so too is her kindness and tenacity. She’s the perfect companion for anyone who feels awkwardly at odds with the world. Five: I love the quietness of Brown Bird. It’s a book that draws you in (without shouting you into the action or screaming nonsense), lets you think, and also makes you smile. It’s warm-hearted and you’ll be backing Rebecca and Chester to be the lovely and brave humans they are. Six: It’s also sweetly written. You’re in the story before you know it, and Arthur has a knack for quirky humour popping up in just the right places, alongside the more daunting prospects for the protagonists, as well as feeding in issues of diversity and difference without being heavy handed. Highly recommended for 9+. Excellent for anyone who’s taken a while to believe in themselves. Here’s hoping we meet Rebecca again.

Opening with the epigraph ”Live. Laugh, Love. — Ancient Human proverb,” you know that Turncoat isn’t going to be your standard Aotearoa fiction (that’s no surprise coming from the Lawrence and Gibson stable.) Your curiosity is piqued. “Ancient Human proverb” — sweet irony. I can already see large wooden letters sitting on shelves and hung on walls. If you’re lost, a meme dictionary or a quick google will come in handy but it won't matter, as there are enough wry references you will easily recognise that will keep you amused. Turncoat is hilarious. The satirical approach provides an accessible portal for Tīhema Baker’s critique of casual racism and institutional conflicts for Māori working in the Public Service. Step back, and walk into the future. It’s Revolution 9-4025 (2507 AD) and Kytoonoo 1 Daniel is determined to change the world. He’s young, idealistic, and believes that he can make a difference. Earth, now known as Teerin’ Ho (there are other excellent renamings; the Pacific Ocean’s new name is Extremely Large Water Expanse, and plenty of highly enjoyable word play) is dominated by the Aliens. They control the airspaces, have claimed important ancient Human places, have a grand city in the sky, Kappeetar, and have higher Rank (more power and money). There’s a Treaty, but, yes, there are two versions. The Common and the Noor. Does this sound familiar? So Daniel joins the Hierach with the ambition to change the system from within. And he starts to make some small wins, despite the fact that he is called everything from Dan-Yell to Denial. He’s rekindled his friendship with the sleekly coated Neekor, and feels that he is continuing to stay true to his familial relationships (his mother is the leader of New Zealand) and his childhood friendship with Hayden (Rank 0 and heading downward). Daniel works at the Chamber of Covenant Resolutions (ChamCov) where there’s a mix of Alien and Human employees, and works on Authorisation disputes. As long as he plays the game, it’s okay. A trip to Ireland, who want to settle their Authorisation independent of Britain, spells out the quandary of being a mouthpiece of the Hierach. As things escalate in both the political and personal spheres for Daniel, where will he stand? Suffice to say, over several Revolutions he goes from optimistic, through dumb-founded, to pessimistic, and a choice is imminent. There are no happy endings in this satire, but there is hope. Turncoat is an important, refreshing novel that does not shy from the truth of our race relations and obligations to Te Tiriti. Its humour and speculative setting give an opportunity to open your mind to the possibility of a different world order. If fiction does nothing else, it enables you to walk in someone else’s shoes. Walking is recommended.

Lioness by Emily Perkins

A new Emily Perkins novel is a rare thing (the last being The Forrests in 2012). She’s been writing plays and teaching. And what good things they are. Her take on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which played at the Theatre Royal a few years ago, was superb. So lucky us, it’s a Donna Tart moment this year with the Lioness. It’s always nerve-wracking when a favourite author has a new work. Will you still like their style? Can you resist the temptation to compare? And will this grip you as other writings have? So, the book lands. The novel cracks in from the start with our protagonist, Therese having average sex with her older husband, and then discovering, a few pages in, the Viagra tucked away in the suitcase. You sense an unravelling is to begin. Life is too neat. Therese too plastic. Later you realise, malleable. Not by circumstance, rather by choice. A choice to have her ‘dream’ homewares brand, to please everyone even at the loss of her own identity, and to stay quiet when she would rather speak out. You can wear the silk jumpsuit, attend the right events, and host the perfect party, but the girl from the Valley will still appear unexpectedly. There are sneaky tell-tale clues of her other life, of her other self. The drink of choice, rum and coke, the occasional slip in language, and the pulse of something wild just under the surface. This surface will crack open when her developer husband has the spotlight of a fraud enquiry turned on him. Conveniently, in the downstairs apartment is another middle-aged, middle-class (although not quite as privileged or wealthy as Therese) woman, Claire, having an epiphany or crisis — take your pick. While reading this I had the same discomfort as when I read Rachel Cusk’s Second Place. These people — what’s wrong with them? It’s hard to like any of them, even Therese and Claire (the first you have some empathy for, the second yeah, okay, break out if you really need to), especially those adult children who treat Therese (wife number two and not their mother) appallingly. They are universally horrendous. So, what keeps you there, with the Lioness? The writing, as ever, is excellent; Perkin’s observations are squirmingly spot on; the irony and social commentary eviscerating. I loved this more once I closed the pages and left those characters behind. Much like Cusk’s Second Place, it will make you shudder and laugh simultaneously.