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Courting controversy, Emma Martin

Fiction
The Suicide Club
Sarah Quigley
Vintage, $38.00,
ISBN 9780143771012

Midway through Sarah Quigley’s The Suicide Club, Lace, one of its three troubled young protagonists, recalls a story told to her by her father, a celebrated film-maker who, along with Lace’s mother and younger sister, died in horrifying circumstances when Lace was eight – a loss which she has learned to accommodate, but from which she has in no way recovered. In the story, a beautiful princess develops an allergy to sunlight, which leaves her crying salty tears that form small ponds around her. The allergy becomes progressively more extreme until she is unable to tolerate even artificial light, leaving her living in darkness with only a blind manservant for company.

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Shining a transformative light, Sarah Quigley

Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand Ingrid Horrocks and Cherie Lacey (eds) Victoria University Press, $40.00, ISBN 9781776560707 At a time when much of Europe is preoccupied with redefining – and defending – boundaries, New Zealand is

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Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

If music be … Elspeth Sandys

The Conductor Sarah Quigley Vintage, $39.99, ISBN 9781869795061   Any author setting out to write a novel with a man or woman of acknowledged genius at its centre is setting herself a Herculean task. When the genius is also a

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Remind me where we are now, Nicholas Reid

Secret City Vivienne Plumb Cape Catley, $24.99, ISBN 090856189X Shot Sarah Quigley Virago, $34.95, ISBN 1860499635 What country am I in here? Characters get ideas from watching “5.30 With Jude”, there’s a reference to “old Maori guys”, and one of

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The poetics of limitation, John O’Connor

Playing God Glenn Colquhoun Steele Roberts, $24.95, ISBN 1877228753 LOVEINABOOKSTOREORYOURMONEYBACK Sarah Quigley Auckland University Press, $21.95, ISBN 1869402847 People with Real Lives Don’t Need Landscapes John Dolan Auckland University Press, $21.99, ISBN 1869402871   Three books with apparently little in

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

The new restlessness, Sarah Quigley

Settler Dreaming Bernadette Hall Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734247 Porcelain Diana Bridge Auckland University Press, $19.95, ISBN 1869402642 The death of Alan Curnow last year seemed to call for some kind of reassessment of our national poetry, and some

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Rise of the Super-models, Bernadette Hall

AUP New Poets Raewyn Alexander, Anna Jackson, Sarah Quigley Auckland University Press, $19.95, ISBN 1 86940 197 2 Sleeve-notes Emma Neale Godwit, $19.95, ISBN 1 86962 048 8 bell tongue Paola Bilbrough Victoria University Press, $19.95, ISBN 0 86473 363

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Hard looks at a hard emotion, Sarah Quigley

New Zealand Love Stories ed Fiona Kidman Oxford University Press, $45.00, ISBN 0 19 558399 X There’s a line in Maurice Duggan’s story “Along Rideout Road That Summer” which could be blazoned across the cover of this new anthology. The

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Posted in Literature, Review, Short stories

With the seams showing, Vivienne Shakespear

After Robert Sarah Quigley Penguin, $24.95, ISBN 0 14 028437 0 Halley and Claudia, 20-year-olds living on opposite sides of the planet but “born under the same astrological influence” are stars set to collide in Sarah Quigley’s upbeat first novel,

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Checking out Gen X, Sarah Quigley

The NeXt Wave Mark Pirie (ed) University of Otago Press $24.95 IBSN 1877133 44 2 At the Wearable Arts Awards in Nelson this year, there was a lot of congratulatory talk about how far New Zealand has come in the

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