My poetry reading is eclectic and erratic. I have good intentions. I have poems and poets I have read that resonate years on. A fan of Michael Ondaatje and of Hone Tuwhare in my 20s, I read their collections and their books would travel with me. More recent highlights are Anne Carson’s Wrong Norma and Richard von Sturmer’s Postcard Stories, which both match wit and intellect to great effect. Poetry comes in many shapes and sizes. I have always been attracted to small strange books of words and images usually discovered in second-hand bookshops. Pamphlets and slim collections where words edge at each other; mercurial. Making sense, or not, and altering our senses. The sparsity on the page inviting interjections; encouraging thought. The poetry forms various. Intellect and emotion juggling on the page, or a story in a verse poem contained by the rules, a haiku exacting in tempo — its precision saying or showing up something so much more than its parts. Concrete poems inventively arranged on the page — the space around the words built with intention. On my reading pile right now, I was surprised to find 3 poetry volumes, all different in style. Two from small presses. One chosen for its cover, one a gift, and the third an appealing title.
I could not resist the typography and cover design of The Territory is Not the Map, a chapbook published by Ugly Duckling Presse in NY. It’s bilingual — I can’t read the Spanish, but maybe one day I will. The possibility makes a future. Marilia Garcia’s poems read like a beautiful hum, the pace of the poems lifts off the page, the repetition of lines song-like. You are transported at a glance, on a journey in an unknown geography.
The gift, Little Dead Rabbit is a collaboration between the poet Astrid Alben and the graphic designer Zigmunds Lapsa. A corpse at the side of the road and the question of borders informs this unusual, beautiful publication. With its die-cut abstract illustrations and words floating within space, this is a concrete poem which goes beyond the playfulness of its form, cutting to something which is both challenging and embracing; looking at death and therefore life.
I’m currently reading The Wild Fox of Yemen by Threa Almontaser, written in response to 9/11, to what it feels like to be a Muslim woman in the USA, and how family, tradition, language shape us and both hold and suffocate. Belonging and displacement continue to be issues that we fail to resolve. Exploring mistranslation, the poems are intriguing and thought-provoking.
My poetry books tend to stay on the reading pile for months, sometimes years. I dip in, dip out. They rise to the surface and are submerged by novels, review copies, work reading, articles, the news feed. But they are there marking time, waiting for my attention and they never fail to intrigue. Why do poetry books not get the short shrift like some novels, get abandoned like some non-fiction? There is something admirable about their brevity. Every word counts, and as a reader I respect the work on the page. Somehow they are vital. Have a look at our poetry selection and choose a collection that resonates with you, or be random and make a discovery! Happy Poetry Day!

CHICANES by Clara Schulmann (translated from the 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 (but probably less imperfectly than a chatbot, as if perfection was even the aim), to reflect our emotional and cultural condition. The book is immersive and curious in the best possible way.

Kirsty Gunn can write, she really can, but do I want to read these stories? Yes, with caution! In Pretty Ugly Gunn confounds us with the sublime and the rot. Here what seems too good to be true is just that. Not good. The opening story, ‘Blood Knowledge’, lets us wander in a beautiful garden with a successful author. We warm to the narrator’s voice, her frustration with her role as wife and mother, as an author with a predictable and highly sort after series. Her next book is overdue and as we read on we sense a festering sore. A scab picked at. This isn’t a nice suburban story, not a success story except in the warped mind of our narrator. Yet it’s compelling in its horror, has catches of humour, and observations that capture society’s double standards. Ultimately it’s horrific, but getting there raises questions which deserve consideration. The human condition examined with the sharp edge of Gunn’s pen leaves us exposed and sometimes guessing — piecing clues, trying to catch the unsaid — reading between the lines; we enter the stories with a sense of innocence and leave with a shudder. Pretty Ugly fits in the New Zealand gothic tradition, with the likes of The Scarecrow (Morrison) and Sydney Bridge Upside Down (Ballantyne). Here the edges press in. Gunn from here and living elsewhere (Scotland) has lost none of the sense of the impending gloom, the darkness of wild and unfettered places, and here she uses nature’s darkness to unsettling good effect, double-dosing not only with environment but with the dark corners of the psyche. Each word is necessary in Gunn’s writing, and each encounter slippery — our narrators unexpectedly draw us in and repel us. Pretty Ugly is intriguing, questionable, and razor sharp.

May’s been made redundant from her Human Resources job. She trained the AI too well. She’s the main breadwinner for the family. Her husband Jem does gig work. He had been a professional photographer. Now he catches mice and other pests for the wealthy. Lu and Sy are kids in the world of climate anxiety, measuring the air quality and doing disaster drills. With no work on the horizon, May’s ex-boss tells her about a trial programme that pays well. A trial that changes your face, just slightly, with high tech tattooing. A procedure that makes her unreadable by the surveillance cameras. She doesn’t ask why the Hum are interested in this research — she’s desperate for the money. She’s also desperate to give herself and her family a special experience. An experience from the past when trees grew and the air was clean. A past reminiscent of her childhood walking through the forest (all burnt now). A family ticket to the Botanical Gardens is on the top of her list, even though it is wildly extravagant for this middle class family. This is a gated retreat — a curated space. (As I was reading Hum, I came across an article in The Guardian about manufactured wilderness spaces.) Set in the near future, this is a dystopian novel that is close to the bone. (It’s not so distant considering the speed of change, and Phillips references current articles and research at the close of the novel.) There is AI — the Hums are well developed. The climate crisis is at an elevated pitch. Many traditional human work roles have disappeared. This could have been a hard-edged doom-scrolling novel, but it is far from this. Hum is set in a world where relationships within families matter and the Hum are not hard cold machines. They are all-knowing — clue privacy issues here — but also highly empathetic to the humans. They understand you like no one else, they are observant, caring and they know how you tick. Frightening and reassuring. May and Jem’s children are hooked on their Bunnies — Alexas on steroids — and all the family members are enchanted by (addicted to) their Wooms: cocoon-like high-tech places of refuge and privacy, if you don’t count the pervasive advertising and the recording of your every desire/search/interaction. The internet plus plus. The trip to the Botanics is dreamy until the children get lost. They inadvertently leave the sanctuary via a utility door, and without their Bunnies (which May has ‘ripped off’ their wrists prior to the holiday) they are untrackable. Yet the lost children are not the climatic scene in this novel. Phillips is more interested in what comes next. Internet shaming, family services alerted, suspicion and blame, love and understanding. This is a novel about how technology can change us, and how we may affect it. The Hum will surprise you. It’s a novel about connection, about how to find connection as a parent, in your most intimate relationships, and with yourself in a world flooded with distraction and pervasive change.

Earth’s End publishes excellent graphic novels in Aotearoa. The latest from their publishing stable is Episodes from the pen of Tāmaki Makaurau cartoonist, artist and editor Alex Scott. Here you have a series of slice-of-life stories —episodes — that capture growing up in the city in the 1990s and the influence of media and advertising on society, particularly young people. Scott has narrowed in on the influence of advertising and the role of television initially, through to the advent of social media, to disrupt and to create an arena where there can only be disappointment and confusion. In  the first story eating breakfast is dominated by the hyperactive images of Space Cadet cereal. There is no touching the ground here, rather a sense of disconnect. There are stories about relationships and desire, mostly not realised, where the protagonist has romantic expectations that occur only in soap operas. A teen narrows in on an overly hyped beauty product as the key to popularity. A man is traumatised from working in the advertising world. There’s the world of the mall, and hanging out at the beach. Judgements abound based on peer pressures, heavily influenced by advertising, reality TV and the addictive nature of the TV series. Yet there are also feisty rejections of these messages, and growing suspicions on the part of some of the protagonists. As technology changes, and the media platforms vary, Scott cleverly changes the dimensions of the frame. Gone is the TV screen rectangle. The phone takes over with its vertical reference.  To reflect the screen-like style, text is captioned rather than speech-bubbled, giving another sense of remove. In the later stories, social media is king, and there is a distinctive shift to self-absorption — the screen turns on the self recording every moment in that strangely manufactured way. The illustrations are wonderful, with details that will keep you looking and looking again, seeking out the familiar. In a strange way, there is comfort in the absurdity; and yet it is this exact absurdity that questions our relationship with media, especially in the formative years of childhood and the headiness of growing up.  The stories in Episodes are sad and funny, thought-provoking, and all too real. Here you will find the wonderful awkwardness of adolescence, the kid that is always sideways to the world, along with the epiphany of being yourself, and the sometimes crushing, but always necessary, understanding that life isn’t like the movies. A ballad to — and a warning about — our media-obsessed society.

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A study in the workings of siblings, a story of love, revenge and desire entangled, and a house at its centre. The Safekeep is a stunning debut. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, author Yael van der Wouden eases us into 1961 Holland, looking to the future, but curtailed by the past. This novel keenly observes intimate relationships, social mores, the impact of war, and how these traumas influence decisions.
Isabel is living alone in the family home. Her brothers have both long departed for the city, each to shape their own lives, leaving their sister to care for, and then nurse their mother. Now in her mid-20s, Isabel strictly keeps the house in order, and herself in order. She’s a woman set in her ways, conservative and judgemental, repressed. Yet not everything is as it seems. There’s a broken piece of crockery in the garden from the ‘hare set’, but none of those plates have been broken in Isabel’s memory. It has a story to tell, but whose story? Isabel’s life in the small rural community is predictable. It is calm and pleasant. Yet you sense an uneasiness, a slight tremble in Isabel’s resolve and reserve, a sense of wanting. It is as if Isabel is waiting for something to happen, but she’s not sure what to wish for. And then the disruptor arrives. Eva, the most recent girlfriend of brother Louis, is coming to stay. She has nowhere to go. As Louis leaves for a work trip, the tension between Isabel and Eva grows. Isabel is convinced that Eva is after Louis for his money and his claim to the house as the oldest. She stiffens at Eva’s voice, her tread in the house, at her insistence of staying in Mother’s Room. Isabel counts the silverware and makes an inventory. Eva blows hot and cold, she laughs at Isabel’s ways and equally grows angry at her for her accusations. Despite the animosity, something is drawing them together. They recognise, in each other, a desire for change, for someone to see the other, to really notice them. As the barriers break down between the two women, and Isabel throws caution to the wind, desire takes them to a place apart from the others and their pasts, and they are enveloped in each other and by the house. But it is the house and its contents that will be their undoing. Isabel’s suspicions are founded. There are so many items missing. But why? The Safekeep is a story of reparation, of guilt and loss, and of finding love and truth even when it is difficult to accept.

A second-person fictional autobiography, Now, Now, Louison creates its own genre. Jean Frémon — art critic, curator, novelist, poet and essayist — has painted a portrait in words of the artist Louise Bourgeois; a story of a life in memory: his memory. Frémon first met Bourgeois in the 1980s and curated both her first European show at the Galerie LeLong in Paris in 1985 and her final Parisian show decades later. He visited her in New York over 30 years until her death in 2010, saving snippets of conversation and eavesdropping on her life and work. He started this writing project in 1995, so while he states that this is from memory, and the ‘novel’ was published in French well after her death in 2016 ( and translated into English by Cole Swensen and published by Les Fugitives press in 2018), there is something of the voyeur in this telling. The narration moves from ‘you’ do this, 'you’ do that as the observer Frémon, to 'I' am, 'I' do, 'I' remember as the central character Louise. It is as if Jean Frémon has thought so intently about the artist he has moved his mind and his words into her mouth, into her head, so that the two superimpose each other. You are here, as the reader, the observer and the observed, as well as the being within the artist’s mind, the curator of your own destiny. This shouldn’t work as a device, but in fact it does, and remarkably well thanks to the prowess of Frémon's writing — subtle and exacting. The prose is like a making process — building patterns and rhythm, building a form — a sculpture chiselled out of pain, love and contradiction. It is a compelling way to tell a life, to create an understanding of a sharp and brilliant — as well as a reclusive — artist, an artist completely bound up in her own work, with an incredible sureness and, at the same time, a devastating doubt. Louise Bourgeois’s work is now well known, especially her giant spiders, her fascinating drawings, and her textile works of the body and female sexuality. In Now, Now, Louison we are given a glimpse into her life, her family and feelings of abandonment, her fraught relationship with a mother who died too young, and with a philandering father who wanted her to be someone other than who she was; her ‘escape’ to America, and the life she carved out for herself. Her ongoing art practice, mostly unnoticed during her lifetime — she was well into her 60s when the world started taking notice of her work — marks the pages in description and explanation in an emotionally charged and psychological way: Frémon does not  so much describe as reflect the atmosphere of Louise Bourgious, creating, through his subtle use of language, through repetition of themes and fragments of knowledge, an essence of the woman who sculpted, painted and stitched. This is not a biography, not a work of fact. It is purposely a novel, yet Jean Frémon in this short work creates an intensely interesting portrait of an intensely interesting person. This is a book that takes the reader to a point of maybe understanding, but more importantly to a place in which to be with Loiuse, the artist, the young girl, the elusive woman and the intellectual. In the words of Siri Hustvedt, “She is here in this book, the artist I have called 'mine’ because I have taken her into my very bones, but I did not know the woman. I know her works.”

Meet Tara Selter. Antiquarian book dealer. Married to Thomas, who is also her business partner. Lives in a small town not far from Lille. Life is good. On a buying trip to Paris, the day of the 18th of November has gone pretty much to plan, with the only mishap a burn on her hand from a top of a heater. She rings Thomas in the evening, heads to bed — ice cubes against her hand — and wakes in the morning …..of the 18th of November. We meet Tara on #121 of the 18th of November. She is describing listening to Thomas in the house as he goes about his daily routine (extremely routine for her, as she has been listening to this same sequence of events for over 100 days!). Tara has decamped to the guest room — hiding from Thomas, tired of explaining to him again why she is home, unwilling to disturb his peace of mind even though he believes her — when she explains each day that time is repeating. Hiding in her own house, coming out to wash, to grab some food and get clean clothes, or even sit in the house when Thomas is out — she knows exactly when he leaves the house and the time he will return  — she turns over the reasons why, the what of time, the sense that if she can only find a chink or a door (not that she believes in portals), she could find a way out of this strange situation. The day for everyone else never changes, for it has not been yet. For Tara she is caught in limbo, in some liminal space. She observes everything, intensely looking at objects, people, the night sky — looking for any changes and  trying to decipher whether there is an exact time of repetition. When she was still telling Thomas they would sit together with paper, books and diagrams nutting out theories and debating philosophical explanations. (All of which would, of course, be forgotten by Thomas the next same day.) There is a wonder and a dread in her puzzling. She writes to record, to write herself into existence. “Because I am trying to remember. Because the paper remembers. And there may be healing in sentences.” As time goes by for Tara, there are inconsistencies — her hair grows, what she eats does not return to the cupboard or to the supermarket, some things stay with her, others return to their day. Why some objects stay close is a mystery. It’s fascinating to observe Tara in all her many reactions to her predicament. There is shock, then paralysis, philosophical delvings, experiments (some aimed at tricking time), rationalising, despair — the days are fog, abandonment and carefree enjoyment of being outside of time’s restraints, but mostly a desire to harness this strange beast. She contemplates herself as a monster, then maybe a ghost. She sees Thomas as a ghost, finally unreachable. Despite the times when they are intensely together, she senses the chasm that has opened between them. As the year turns, she returns to Paris to seek a resolution. We stand at the edge, waiting for Volume 2. Balle’s writing is brilliant; hypnotic. The pacing in the book changes to fit Tara’s mood, the revelations build through each sentence, through the episodic pieces, which often repeat and loop enhancing this sense of time being elusive. And like Tara, you are thinking what is this existence? Who am I in my everyday life? If I started to observe, like this woman, what would I see, sense? Is time real or a fabrication? Are we really all going along together in sync or are we each in our own world or one of the many possibilities? As you read On the Calculation of Volume 1 questions bubble away, ideas surface and you will find yourself trying to look around edges attempting to fathom the question of individual existence and the relationships we have to each other and in the wider world.
(We will discussing this interesting novel at our August book group).
Choose your edition.

“Perhaps the past is always trembling inside the present, whether or not we sense it.” Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s debut novel is a triumph of obsession, self-reflection and love. Obsessed with the eighteenth-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, a young mother negotiates her desire to unpick the mystery of this woman as she navigates the daily tasks of her life. “I try to distract myself in my routine of sweeping, wiping, dusting, and scrubbing. I cling to all my little rituals. I hoard crusts.” Out of small spare moments, car trips to historic sites (houses, cemeteries and libraries) with her youngest child and late-night searches on her phone the shape of Eibhlín Dubh’s life is constructed or more accurately imagined. Who was she? What happened to her? Why can this woman’s life not be tracked while her father's, husband's and sons’ lives can? At the heart of the story is a poem—a lament—written by Eibhlín Dubh for her husband Art O’Leary slain by the orders of the  English magistrate. “Trouncings and desolations on you, ghastly Morris of the treachery”. The poem becomes a touchstone for the narrator, a place where she can rest, where she can dream—imagine the world of this other woman who is dealing with loss, a woman who is resolute and tough, who will not lie down nor succumb to expectation from either her family nor the authorities. A Ghost in the Throat questions the telling of history—the invisibility of female voices. Scattered throughout the novel is the phrase “This is a female text”, making us aware that stories are told and histories revealed in other ways, through the body and its scars, through cloth and object, through the tasks that make us human, through the words that are sometimes unsaid and in the margins where many do not look. As the narrator discovers the poet, she frees herself along with this woman trapped in time and neglect.  Ní Ghríofa writes with bewitching clarity as she describes the daily grind, with dreamlike essence in the moments of childhood memory—the longing and discovery—with realist angst about entering adulthood and motherhood, and with compelling atmosphere as the narrator unpicks the past. Rich in content and language, A Ghost in the Throat is both a scholarly endeavour and an autofiction—endlessly curious and achingly beautiful.

What happens when objects meet words and words meet objects? Back in 2008 I curated a jewellery project called LIKE. LIKE was an experiment in interpretation: a translation from object to description and back to object. I made a small object, sent it to a poet, and the poem about this three-dimensional form became the basis for nine jewellers to create their own interpretation of the original. Could the artists remake this object using only the poetic description? When the original is hidden and analysis of language is required, what will happen? How did their own making habits assist or hinder the process of creating an object where the only guidelines were a handful of words — a description that was sometimes clear, but often oblique. If the writer had been given the task of writing an instruction manual, a step-by-step guide, the resultant objects would have more alike. But this wasn’t the goal. It was a translation project, an exploration of language and communication. An exploration of both the visual and verbal. Words describe. Visual language — colour, form, scale, texture — also ‘talks’. The poet, Bill Manhire, studied the object, tried to get its measure, and described its appearance as well as its demeanour. There were clues in the poem and at times clarity of description. Yet a problem remained. The object was an alien, difficult to assimilate or easily align with something known. It was something almost familiar, but ultimately foreign. In the language of poetry it became a new thing. For the curator, the words were unexpected. The floor was open. The translation began. For what happens when we are asked to decipher what we see or what we experience? Each telling will be different. Are we more attuned today to our surroundings compared to yesterday? If we glance, what do we miss? If we study with heated concentration do we create a story that does not exist? Are our senses reliable and is our language sufficient? For LIKE, the jewellers needed to read and decipher the words of Manhire; they needed to know how to read this poem pulling from it the ‘clues’ that would be the keys to making. It wasn’t intended to trick or obfuscate, but it did prove challenging. Translation was necessary. It was surprising how various the resultant objects were, yet all expressed elements of the original. They were a family of objects related to each other. The process of translation, although flawed and sometimes deliberately sabotaged, was an experiment in interpretation that captured the essence of the original and held within its translated parts some aspects of the makers/interpreters. (The exhibition catalogue includes all 10 objects, responses from the jewellers about the process, an introduction by Augusta Szark and essay by Louise Garrett, and Bill Manhire’s poem.)     

Catherine Chidgey has the ability to pull you into a wonderland before you even have a chance to blink. In The Book of Guilt you will be transported through the words and memories of Vincent to a place that feels familiar, but isn’t: to the story of three brothers who live in a grand old house with three mothers but have no sure footing at all as they travel down the staircase, touching the oak griffin on the newel post each morning for luck. But what are they wishing for? And what lucky event do they seek? It is Margate they dream of. Lawrence, William and Vincent are identical triplets. They live in a Sycamore Home. They are ‘Sycamore Boys’ — different from the children in the village. They must be protected from the illness which racks their bodies. In spite of the care of Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, the boys are often unwell, and need to take medicine or have regular injections. When they are not forced to lie in their sickbeds they recite and learn from the encyclopaedic Book of Knowledge and debate philosophical conundrums in their Ethical Hour. Yet something is afoot at the home and beyond. As other boys leave for Margate, cured and well, the triplets’ frustrations grow and questions surface. When Vincent unwittingly hears he is a hero and pieces together the reasons why, the facade begins to peel away. As we venture forth through the clever three-part structure — ‘The Book of Dreams’, ‘The Book of Knowledge’, and ‘The Book of Guilt’ — we are confronted with questions about human value, authoritarian states, the willingness of a population to conform, the suspicion of the ‘other’, and the seething violence inherent in a repressed society. There are echoes of Mengele’s experiments and the science of eugenics in this alternative 1970s Britain. What seems innocent is yet another layer of wallpaper keeping the real world at bay. In this world there are other children who have questions, who are held in suspension — in a lie. Nancy, perfect in her frock and newly pierced ears, is the darling daughter of caring, over-protective parents. She’s also the girl who appears in the dreams of the triplets — to Lawrence in sweet innocence, to William as a nightmare, and to Vincent as a warning. (And Nancy has the best line — “Nothing would harm her. She was made from teeth, and she would devour the world.”) Something evil is coming. Vincent knows he must stop it, but can he? When everything you thought was true is a lie, and those you trusted are not what they seemed, you only have instinct — and that may not help at all. The Book of Guilt is captivating, full of intriguing ideas, and wonderful characters. It’s fine storytelling, and like Nancy’s teeth it will hold you even when you would rather look away. Another standout novel from Catherine Chidgey.

Han Kang's semi-autobiographical The White Book is a contemplation of life and death. It’s her meditative study of her sibling’s death at a few hours old, and how this event shapes her own history. Taking the colour white as a central component to explore this memory, she makes a list of objects that trigger responses. These include swaddling bands, salt, snow, moon, blank paper and shroud. “With each item I wrote down, a ripple of agitation ran through me. I felt I needed to write this book, and that the process of writing would be transformative, would itself transform, into something like a white ointment applied to a swelling, like a gauze laid over a wound.” Han Kang was in Warsaw - a place which is foreign to her when she undertook this project - and in being in a new place, she recalls with startling clarity the voices and happenings of her home and past. The book is a collection of quiet yet unsettling reflections on exquisitely observed moments. These capsules of text build upon each other, creating a powerful sense of pain, loss and beauty. Each moment so tranquil yet uneasy. Han Kang’s writing is sparse, delicate and nuanced. Describing her process of writing she states, “Each sentence is a leap forwards from the brink of an invisible cliff, where time’s keen edges are constantly renewed. We lift our foot from the solid ground of all our life lived thus far, and take that perilous step out into the empty air.” You can sense the narrator’s exploration and stepping out into the unknown in her descriptions of snow, in her observations as she walks streets hitherto unknown, and in her attempts to realise the view of her mother, a young woman dealing with a premature birth, and the child herself, briefly looking out at the world. Small objects become talismans of memory, a white pebble carries much more meaning than its actuality. Salt and sugar cubes each hold their own value in their crystal structure. “Those crystals had a cool beauty, their white touched with grey.” “Those squares wrapped in white paper possessed an almost unerring perfection.” In 'Salt', she cleverly reveres the substance while at the same time cursing the pain it can cause a fresh wound. The White Book is a book you handle with some reverence - its white cover makes you want to pick it up delicately. The text is interspersed with a handful of moody black and white photographs. This is a book you will read, pick up again to re-read passages, as each deserves concentration for both the writing and ideas. 

Gliff is a book about authoritarianism, bonding, boundaries, bureaucracy, categories, choices, climate, community, crisis, cruelty, curiosity, data, definitions, devices, disconnection, doubt, exploitation, fables, fierceness, freedom, hope, horses, humanness, identity, imagination, kindness, language, lies, limitations, loss, meaning, meaningless, money, obedience, pollution, power, possibilities, power, profit, questions, rebellion, a red line, reduction, refugees, regulations, reports, resistance, revelation, rigidity, siblings, story-telling, a strange machine, surveillance, the digital world, the othered, the unwanted,  toeing the line, truth, undesirables, verification, words.

It’s a book about now, our near future, the past, time. It’s a book that frightens, dances, plays, whispers and shouts. It’s a book that draws on mythology, fairytales, art, poetry and literature; and gives us words that have come before and will go ahead of us. It’s a warning and a promising embrace. 

Siblings Briar and Rose are left to fend for themselves. Leif has found them an empty house to wait in. He’s taken their passports, left them with a stack of tinned food and a roll of notes. Their home has been red-lined, their camper van red-lined. There’s a paddock of horses waiting to be sent to the knacker’s yard. Rose and Gliff have formed an unbreakable bond of perfect trust. Briar is putting the pieces of the puzzle together, while Rose is clear-eyed in instinct if not in knowledge, in a world that insists on order. An order that feeds the machine of the wealthy and the powerful. 

Ali Smith’s Gliff is a book that I didn’t want to finish. A book so interesting, nuanced and layered, that I did not want to depart. To stay in this playfulness of words, the richness of language and story, to be suspended with curiosity, while also confronted by the urgency of our 21st century landscape must surely be a work of genius. Fortunately, this book is one of a pair; —Glyph will follow Gliff. 

Mesmerising from the opening lines, At Night All Blood is Black will take hold in its repetitive, rhythmic structure, creating a landscape of madness and violence that is haunting, beautiful, disturbing, and viscerally rich. This is trench warfare pared back to the lives of two Senegalese soldiers fighting for the French. Spurred on by mistaken loyalty to the mother country and by the false cultural narrative (encouraged by their Captain) of the fearsome savage — the brave, rising into no-man’s land on the shrill whistle — the attack signalled for all, both friend and foe, these two men run side-by-side screaming into the void. Alfa Ndiaye and Mademba Diop are more-than-brothers, raised in the same village, in the same family, with a shared life that binds them to each other and their destiny. The opening paragraphs of Alfa’s confession to a crime lead us quickly to the death of Mademba. In looping sequences, David Diop carves out the story through Alfa’s guilt and his jarring memories in line with the young man’s descent into madness. Guilty for denying his more-than-brother’s dying request, not once but three times, Alfa sets out to avenge his enemy as well as his conscience in an increasingly gruesome manner. An activity, at first applauded and then reviled by his brothers in arms, as well as his superiors — who eventually send him away from the front — unnerves his companions. With a brevity of action and repetitive narrative, Diop (with the excellent translation of Anna Moschovakis) invades us with the rawness, violence and fear of the front, with the absurdity of the actions of war, and the disturbing hollowing of emotion only to be replaced with superstition and mistrust. As Alfa wreaks havoc in a situation overwhelmingly chaotic, he becomes further separated from reality, and increasingly isolated, living to his own strange rationale, and becomes a symbol of bad luck, and feared by his fellow soldiers. In the second half of the book, reassigned to the Rear and a psychiatric ward, Alfa’s grip on reality tips further. Here, as his memories of village life, the disappearance of his mother, the social politics of his age sect, and the friendly rivalry, as well as enduring bond, with Mademba, come to the fore as the intensity of the Front is pushed aside, we sense why his madness descended so intensely. Here, we have myth and story. Here, we see that Alfa, without his French-speaking more-than-brother Mademba, is at sea on the battlefield and in his ability to communicate beyond gesture and drawing. Diop cleverly keeps us in Alfa’s head, our mad and unreliable narrator, but gives us enough clues to set the alarm ringing as we dip into a dream-like sequence that will take us somewhere unexpected. So unexpected that you will loop back to the start to read this slim, but unforgettable novel with fresh eyes. Stunning, unrelenting and beautifully executed. 

I’m reposting my review of Delirious by Damien Wilkins this week. Delirious took out the coveted Acorn this week! If you don’t know what that is and didn’t notice the biggest event on the book industry calendar, then it’s time to take note. The Ockhams are our annual book awards, a celebration of writing and publishing in Aotearoa and home to the prestigious $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. Congratulations to Damien and the other award winners! Publishing in a small country is hard work, and we are lucky to have a rich and diverse literary culture. However, this can’t happen on merely good wishes, a few prizes, and ever-dwindling funding streams. Those who work in the book trade — publishers, reviewers, booksellers, authors — are highly committed, but all this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. So: celebrate in the best way by buying a book. Aotearoa authors, booksellers and publishers exist only with your support. Thank you, readers!

Review:

Mary and Pete are sorting things out. They are going to make the ‘big move’. Time to downsize, to choose low maintenance over steps one may tumble down. Mary knows Pete’s heart isn’t up to it. Pete knows Mary’s state of mind is tentative. So, no choice really. Or is there? Damien Wilkins’s Delirious is a spotlight on that thing that looms for all of us — old age. A novel on ageing and the problems this conjures, whether practical or philosophical, doesn’t sound very promising. Think again. Wilkins uses his exceptional craft as a writer, a sharp analysis of human behaviour, and an observant eye to bring us a thoughtful novel. One rich in emotion, without being cloying. In these pages are grief and loss: for Mary a phone call triggers a trauma from the past — a trauma which neither she nor Pete have fully resolved. Here is Mary, ex-cop, unsure how to proceed. Here is Pete, ex-librarian, searching for the right words. This is a novel with a heart that beats and not all the beats are the same. Take Pete’s mother. In dementia, Margaret finds an escape, of sorts. An escape from her overbearing husband and from conformity. Her mind’s slippage is both frightening and hilarious. 
Mary and Pete are the every-people: people you know and maybe who you are. They are what we might call average. Mary’s a bit more aloof than Pete. Pete’s keen on helping out. The community that revolves around them, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours are all set up a little by Wilkins. Delirious takes a gentle poke at our society, and a less subtle, but delightfully funny, dig at ‘the village’. From Mary’s ex-boss perfecting his bowling, to the snide comments of the narrow-minded, to the heat-pump “we will never have one of those”, to the new but not quite right interior decor, there is something about the retirement village that doesn’t encourage the couple to unpack their boxes. What they don’t say — especially to each other — and don’t do underscores much of the novel. Then something changes. Mary and Pete will make the big move, but not the one you or they expected. 
Delirious is by turns sad and funny. It’s profoundly honest about ageing and caring for others in illness, and all the dilemmas this poses, yet cleverly balances this poignancy with sly satire.

A sweet pastry with morning coffee, a biscotti for a mid-morning snack, or a satisfying panna cotta? All can be found in Letitia Clark’s Italian-inspired dessert cookbook, La Vita è Dolce. Dipping into this warm and delightful book, I was pleasantly surprised to see a wide range of baking, some simple recipes, others more complex, and some that look complicated but aren’t. That is, they look great! Almond biscuits that look like tiny perfect peaches! But Clark reassures us in her introductory paragraphs that she’s not a perfect cook, and that “cooking should never be a drama… Baking is not a divine gift or even a precise science…”, There are sections on biscotti, crostate (tart), torte, dolci al cucchiaio (sweets by spoon), gelato and gifts. Making a cake is often in celebration of a milestone event — a birthday (layer cake please!), wedding, a memorial or an achievement. Making a cake is a gift: generally you make a cake for someone in celebration or to carve out a little time. All the cakes in La Vita è Dolce look and sound delicious. Letitia Clark is a champion of the upside-down cake (as she says in her notes, her dessert recipes are Italian-inspired; she’s a French-trained Englishwoman living in Sardinia). I couldn’t go past the Candied Clementine, Fennel Seed & Polenta Cake. Those citrus and aniseed flavours, served with a good dollop of youghurt — it’s relaxed and aromatic. Need a recipe to impress and prep ahead of an occasion? The Ricotta, Pear & Hazelnut Layer Cake will be your jam! And a spiced pumpkin cake sounds just right for an autumn afternoon.
A sweet mouthful is a small luxury, an indulgence to lift your day or finish a meal. There’s something divine about a silky creamy panna cotta. Choose from Toasted Fig Leaf (yes, the leaves!), Roasted Almond or Cappuccino. Or head to the simpler Green Lemon Posset. The ‘Gifts’ section includes a delicious chocolate salami, playful and colourful marzipan fruits, and of course, classic panforte and truffles!
There’s plenty to keep you baking through wet afternoons and cool evenings here.
And this, along with Wild Figs and Fennel — a seasonal year in Clark’s Italian kitchen — are in our annual cookbook sale.

Emily St John Mandel’s SEA OF TRANQUILITY is a book to be lost in. It’s a book about time, living and loving. Superbly constructed, it stretches from 1912 to 2401; from the wildness of Vancouver to a moon colony of the future. A remittance man, Edwin St.John St.Andrew, is sent abroad. He’s completely at sea in this new world — he has no appetite for work nor connection — and makes a haphazard journey to a remote settlement on a whim. Here, he has an odd experience which leaves him shaken. He will return to England only to find himself derailed in the trenches of the First World War and later struck down by the flu pandemic. It’s 2020 and Mirella (some readers will remember her from The Glass Hotel) is searching for her friend Vincent (who has disappeared). She attends a concert by Vincent’s brother Paul and afterwards waits for him to appear, along with two music fans at the backstage door. It’s here, on the eve of our current pandemic, that she discovers that Vincent has drowned at sea. Yet it is an art video that Vincent had recorded and been used in Paul’s performance which is at the centre of the conversation for one of the music fans. The film is odd — recounting an unworldly experience in the Vancouver forest. A short clip — erratic and strangely out of place, out of time. It’s 2203 and Olive Llewellyn, author, is on a book tour of Earth. She lives on Moon Colony Two and is feeling bereft — missing her husband and daughter. It’s a gruelling schedule of talks, interviews and same-same hotel rooms; and, if this wasn’t enough, there’s a new virus on the loose. Her bestselling book, Marienbad is about a pandemic. Within its pages is a description of a strange occurrence which takes place in a railway station. When an interviewer questions her about this passage, she’s happy to talk about it, as long it is off the record. It’s 2401, and detective Gaspery-Jacques Roberts from the Night City has been hired to investigate an anomaly in time. Drawing on his experiences and the book, Marienbad, and finding connections between the aforementioned times and people, will lead him to a place where he will make a decision that may have disruptive consequences. A decision which will cause upheaval. Emily St.John Mandel is deft in her writing, keeping the threads of time and the story moving across and around themselves without losing the reader, and making the knots — the connections — at just the right time to engage and delight intellect and curiosity. Moving through time and into the future makes this novel an unlikely contender to be a book of our time, but in so many ways it is. Clever, fascinating, reflective and unsettling, it’s a tender shout-out to humanity. 

Carl Shuker’s The Royal Free has been sitting with me for a while. I finished this novel in two minds. Was it just clever, but slightly irritating? Or was it brilliant and unsettling? Distance has made the novel grow fonder. Sometimes you read a novel for its absorbing plot, page-turning qualities and when you close the cover and come up for air you declare it wonderful, but give yourself a few months and it’s often hard to pinpoint the substance of the story. It was absorbing at the time. Of course, there are those novels which you circle back to, that stay with you for random reasons across years and through experience. The Royal Free is neither of these, but it is something. When I reviewed A Mistake, it was all scalpel fine cuts — a novel that would leave a scar. I reckon The Royal Free is more rash-inducing. 
This is probably relevant with a six-month baby in the mix and James Ballard (our main guy) an editor at a medical journal, the latter's impetuous (rash) behaviour driven by frustration and grief, and the violence that permeates the novel, both on a personal and society level. (James Ballard may even claim that errors in texts creep into the lines and pages of the articles he edits a bit like an unwanted disease if he was pushed to!). It’s London 2011: there’s disharmony in the air, riots on the streets and a distinct collision of worlds. In The Royal Free this clash is played out through the office and the estate where James and baby Fiona live, and through the stories of other characters and their own particular circumstances. James is our guide through all this. After all, he is writing the style guide, and Shuker is playing puppet master, as novelists are want to do. If they're not in charge, who is? The editor? There are literary tricks and editorial in-jokes here, not all of which I caught, but enough to know that Shuker is playfully throwing a rule book in the air with some irony, while also respecting the word on the page, of which this writer is a master. And beyond the word play, the often hilarious and uncomfortable office dynamics (laugh and weep), there is a tender story about parenting, grief, and the unexpected consequences of violence on an individual and society at large. Here is a disintegration; a breaking down of expectation and logic. James Ballard is a quandary. What kind of parent leaves his baby alone to go for a run in the park? An action which plays on repeat in Ballard’s mind, which spirals to something increasingly problematic. Yet he is performing his tasks to the letter, caring for Fiona, and attempting to adjust to life without his wife. And yet he will reach out and touch danger. What is this impulse that compels us to be so complex? The Royal Free is, I think, brilliant and unsettling, and a little vexing. A bit like Mr Ballard!

Mary and Pete are sorting things out. They are going to make the ‘big move’. Time to downsize, to choose low maintenance over steps one may tumble down. Mary knows Pete’s heart isn’t up to it. Pete knows Mary’s state of mind is tentative. So, no choice really. Or is there? Damien Wilkins’s Delirious is a spotlight on that thing that looms for all of us — old age. A novel on ageing and the problems this conjures, whether practical or philosophical, doesn’t sound very promising. Think again. Wilkins uses his exceptional craft as a writer, a sharp analysis of human behaviour, and an observant eye to bring us a thoughtful novel. One rich in emotion, without being cloying. In these pages are grief and loss: for Mary a phone call triggers a trauma from the past — a trauma which neither she nor Pete have fully resolved. Here is Mary, ex-cop, unsure how to proceed. Here is Pete, ex-librarian, searching for the right words. This is a novel with a heart that beats and not all the beats are the same. Take Pete’s mother. In dementia, Margaret finds an escape, of sorts. An escape from her overbearing husband and from conformity. Her mind’s slippage is both frightening and hilarious. 
Mary and Pete are the every-people: people you know and maybe who you are. They are what we might call average. Mary’s a bit more aloof than Pete. Pete’s keen on helping out. The community that revolves around them, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours are all set up a little by Wilkins. Delirious takes a gentle poke at our society, and a less subtle, but delightfully funny, dig at ‘the village’. From Mary’s ex-boss perfecting his bowling, to the snide comments of the narrow-minded, to the heat-pump “we will never have one of those”, to the new but not quite right interior decor, there is something about the retirement village that doesn’t encourage the couple to unpack their boxes. What they don’t say — especially to each other — and don’t do underscores much of the novel. Then something changes. Mary and Pete will make the big move, but not the one you or they expected. 
Delirious is by turns sad and funny. It’s profoundly honest about ageing and caring for others in illness, and all the dilemmas this poses, yet cleverly balances this poignancy with sly satire. Up for the big prize — The Acorn* — it’s a worthy contender and in very good company. A village of books waiting for judgement day. 

* The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will be announced May 14th at the Ockham Book Awards. Read the shortlist now!

If you haven’t come across Maira Kalman’s work, you’re in for a treat. These seemingly ‘nice’ paintings are loaded with meanings, and double meanings, with irreverence and wit. They can also be morose or mundane, profound and sorrowful; Kalman’s wry humour keeping the darkest emotions at bay. They capture the full gamut of human life and interactions. And within all these complex emotions that Kalman’s picture and text publications provoke, there is a remarkable lightness which is exhilarating, making her books the ones you want to keep close. In Still Life With Remorse: Family Stories Kalman unpicks her own and other family histories. Here are the famous, mercilessly poked at. The Tolstoys’ disfunction, Chekov’s misery, Kafka and Mahler both bilious driven by regret (and family) to create, and here is Cicero regretting everything. But these are mere interludes, along with the musical intervals, to the stories at the heart of this collection of writings and paintings. Here are the empty chairs, the tablecloths, the people gathered, the hallway, the death bed, the flowers in vases and the fruit in bowls, all triggering a memory, all resting not so quietly. Here are the parents, the uncle, the sister. Here is the aging, the forgetting and the not forgiving. Stepping back to the Holocaust, to Tel Aviv, to those that left and to those that were erased. Here are the choices and the impossible sitting around the room still living. Walking through one door and into another place, remorse following. Despite it all, there is a way to step out of one’s shoes and walk free. Still Life With Remorse is, in spite of itself, life, that is, merriment.