A Mistake
Carl Shuker
Victoria University Press, $30.00,
ISBN 9781776562145
Carl Shuker is a writer who is not afraid to take risks. His previous four novels were all hailed for their innovation in form and espousal of post-modernism. He is, as far as any definition of genre can be trusted, a truly literary writer.
The Wish Child Catherine Chidgey Victoria University Press, $30.00, IBSN 9781776560622 When Dutch writer Herman Koch visited New Zealand as part of the 2016 Auckland Writers’ Festival, he expressed his belief that WWII was losing its allure as a subject…
The Writers’ Festival
Stephanie Johnson
Vintage, $38.00
ISBN 9781775537984
Taken together, Stephanie Johnson’s The Writing Class (2013) and her latest novel, The Writers’ Festival, are a study in ambivalence. Can creative writing be taught? the first asks. Maybe, maybe not. At least, Johnson’s two writing tutors in The Writing Class are in disagreement. Merle Carbury, a 50-something midlist-and-slipping novelist, believes teaching “a student with no instinct for writing is as impossible as teaching a tone-deaf child the violin”. Gareth Heap, on the other hand, has parlayed a prize-winning first novel into a teaching gig and reckons writing, like chemistry or a foreign language, can be taught.
The Writing Class Stephanie Johnson Random House, $38.00, ISBN 9781775532590 The Last Days of the National Costume Anne Kennedy Allen and Unwin, $37.00, ISBN 9781743313862 Two writers of a similar age and stage in the development of their writing careers,…
The Open World Stephanie Johnson Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781869797836 The Open World was my introduction to Stephanie Johnson’s substantial body of work. This is a complex novel, not easy to consider as a whole, or to sum up…
Gith Chris Else Random House, $27.99, ISBN 9781869790134 Show of Hands Anthony McCarten Random House, $29.99, ISBN 9781869419950 Swimmer’s Rope Stephanie Johnson Random House, $29.99, ISBN 9781869790257 At the first look there’s not much to tie these three novels together.…
John Tomb’s Head Stephanie Johnson Vintage, $28.00, ISBN 1869418263 You have to admire The Rev Mr Taylor, whoever he might have been, for chronicling, in the manner of Nigella Lawson discussing the preparation of a steak and kidney pudding, the…
These Lives I Have Buried Lindsay Rabbitt Four Winds Press, $14.95, IBSN 0958251452 What Makes A Teacher? Jack Lasenby Four Winds Press, $14.95, IBSN 0958251444 Ghost Who Writes Martin Edmond Four Winds Press, $14.95, IBSN 0958251436 A directive for enjoying…
Music from a Distant Room Stephanie Johnson Vintage, $26.95, ISBN 1869416171 Nola Lane is a dental nurse who loves her job. By day she peers carefully into small mouths, tamps down zinc and mercury into tiny jaws and snips cottonwool…
Lazy Wind Poems Graham Lindsay Auckland University Press, $21.99, ISBN 1869402855 Moody Bitch Stephanie Johnson Godwit, $22.95, ISBN 1869621050 Vanilla Wine Geoff Cochrane Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734719 Summer on the Cote d’Azur Alistair Paterson HeadworX, $19.95, ISBN 04730980244…