Blog Archives
Once Were Warriors Alan Duff Tandem, Auckland, 1990, $35 (paperback $19.95) At last a Maori writer has managed to hang out all the dirty Maori washing with some kind of dignity and at the same time place the blame where…
Besides Myself Russell Haley Penguin, Auckland, 1990, $19.95 Night at the Embassy Elizabeth Smither Auckland University Press, 1990, $24.95 Newlands Gary Langford Penguin, Auckland, 1990, $19.95 Like a lot of middle-aged men, Midge, the out-of-work hero-narrator of Russell Haley’s latest…
Girls High Barbara Anderson Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1990, $24.95 Barbara Anderson willingly allowed her mettle as a storyteller to be tested when she located her stories in the familiar physical environment of a Girls’ High School. This is a…
The Burning Boy Maurice Gee Viking, Auckland, 1990, $39.95 The Burning Boy does for Nelson what Bonfire of the Vanities did for New York. It submits, that is, a community to scorching scrutiny. It constructs a narrative form exactly appropriate…
Double Lives Heather Murray University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 1990, $29.95 Heather Murray wonders why Katherine Mansfield does not allow her fictional characters to lead the kind of ‘modern’, independent and rebellious life that Mansfield herself is supposed to have…
The Penguin History of New Zealand Literature Penguin Books Auckland, 1990, $24.95 ‘The story of New Zealand literature is a chapter of accidents,’ declares Patrick Evans in the introduction to his History of New Zealand Literature. ‘It is the provisional…
The Car in New Zealand Graham Hawkes G P Books, Wellington, 1990, $49.95 Cars in particular, and machinery in general, have not featured in New Zealand novels in the way that they have so importantly served American, Australian and English…