I’ve read umpteen books by Americans, quite a few, although not as many as I’d like, by Canadian and Australian writers but not many by New Zealanders. 
Given the quality of those that I have read, I’m sure there are many more I’d like to, if only I could get my hands on them. Here are five I’ve enjoyed, all with links to reviews on my blog.
A family saga is a very old-fashioned structure but if handled well it can be immensely satisfying. Beginning in 1952 and ending in 2015, Fiona Kidman’s All Day at the Movies follows four siblings who take very different paths, bringing them back to their family roots, while offering snapshots of New Zealand’s story along the way. Themes of racism, violence and abuse are explored with admirable humanity. Even the less sympathetic characters are well-rounded with backstories compassionately told. It took me a little while to get into as a multitude of characters were introduced but after the first few chapters I was hooked. Such an accomplished novel, thoroughly absorbing with all its loose ends neatly tucked in.
Set in Paris in 2014, poet, novelist, and literary critic C. K. Stead’s The Necessary Angel is about New Zealander Max Jackson, a professor at the Sorbonne, and the three women who play significant parts in his life during the year the novel spans. Max lives in an apartment in the same building as his ex-wife Louise and their two children. It’s a comfortable arrangement until Max first conceives a passion for his junior colleague then becomes charmed by a student who declares herself mad. While Louise is on holiday, a painting thought to be a Cézanne disappears from her apartment and Max finds himself in a fix. Studded with a multitude of literary allusions – even the cops read Modiano – Stead’s novel manages to be both cerebral and thoroughly entertaining.
Assisted dying isn’t the easiest theme to explore but it was what attracted me to Chloe Lane’s The Swimmers. We know within a few pages that twenty-six-year-old Erin’s terminally ill mother has asked her sister Wyn to help her end her life before it becomes unendurable. Erin and her mother have always disparaged Wyn who never ventured from the family farm, feeling themselves superior, but it’s Wyn who’s taken Helen in and cared for her. Arriving on the Saturday of a long holiday weekend, Erin’s faced with a clear plan laid out by her mother to be put in train the following Tuesday. Erin’s narrative is threaded with a sly, dark humour, changing subtly as she comes to realise she’s not nearly as superior to this family she’s dismissed as bumpkins as she thinks she is. A powerful novella written with wit and humanity whose poignancy creeps up on you.
I remember choosing not to read Anna Smaill’s Man Booker longlisted debut The Chimes thinking it sounded a little too fantastical for me but decided to take a chance with Bird Life which opens arrestingly with two women in a Tokyo park, one a foreigner prostrate on the grass, carefully ignored by passersby, while the other strides out perfectly groomed but with one shoe missing. Smaill’s novel tells the story of Yasuko and Dinah, both suffering terrible loss, each seeing the other as a way to heal her wounds. Grief and madness are difficult themes to explore but Smaill does it with great skill and a lyrical delicacy leaving her readers with much to think about and much to admire.
Craig Cliff’s inventive piece of storytelling, The Mannequin Makers deals with similar themes in an entirely different way. 
The loss of his wife while giving birth to their twins sends mannequin maker Colton Kemp spiralling into madness, unable to speak of her death. That same night, a German strongman makes an appearance in the town. As Colton watches Sandow showcasing total control of his muscles, a plan emerges which will materialise sixteen years later. It will be the culmination of his intense rivalry with Gabriel Doig whose uncannily lifelike models adorn Marumaru’s second department store’s windows. A ships’ carver from Scotland, Doig has his own strange story to tell. He’s lived in Marumaru for two decades when a series of tableaux in Donaldson’s windows catch his eye. Can it possibly be what he thinks it is? Cliff’s novel tells not just one but several stories, all woven neatly into a gripping narrative.
Any novels by New Zealanders you’d recommend, preferably available here in the UK?
If you’d like to explore more posts like this, I’ve listed them here.
