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An important story

6/13/2017

Orphanage Boys
by A.N. Arthur

I have often wondered why we have such a high rate of child abuse in this country and I am sure stories like Orphanage Boys provide part of the answer.
While our country is over 700 years old our histories largely record the last 250. This focuses us on settlement by Europeans and how those early settlers adjusted to an unfamiliar environment. Now that the stories are coming out we are discovering that it was pretty tough going. Orphanage Boys is just one example of how tough it must have been. The events are disturbing but if we are never told about them we will never know the true nature of this country and its people.
Orphanage Boys had me absorbed from the moment I read the first paragraph. We immediately knew there was something going on that was about to change Jimmy and Samuel’s lives. As the circumstances unfolded these suspicions were tragically confirmed. These events led to big changes for the two boys.
     As a reader, I experienced a sense of impending doom when Fraser, unable to care for the two boys, put them into care at Stoke Orphanage. Then he went off to find work and never returned, not entirely due to his own fault, although one wonders why he did not make more of an effort to connect with the boys.
There have been many accounts of what went on in orphanages run by the Catholic Church. As soon as we knew where Fraser was leaving them we knew life was going to be challenging.
     My lasting memory of that first terrible night at the orphanage was of a maggot in a boy’s food. That night Samuel and Jimmy did not eat. However, one can assume they eventually joined the group of ill-treated, hapless boys who ate whatever was put in front of them, maggots and all. There were moments when I wanted to get into the skin of the boys just a little bit more, without it becoming morbid and depressing.
     There is no question terrible things happened. But Samuel and Jimmy were the story’s redemption. Jimmy remained gentle, likable, hopeful and kind throughout the story. Samuel aggressively toughened, which was not surprising when he was victimised as he was.
     There were moments of levity – such as building the dam, and the escapades at night. These were moments that reminded me of how irrepressible a young person’s spirit can be.
Jimmy was someone to whom we warmed from the outset. He was young and vulnerable. His older brother, shouldered the responsibility of caring for them both and this formed a different kind of character. The unwanted attention from Father Donatus only adds to his smouldering anger. Just how that finally expresses itself is for the reader to find out
     Sometimes I felt the dialogue did not quite fit the speaker. For example, Samuel says, “That Brother Donatus…He’s a piece of work…” (39) Although it is explained as being something his father might have said, I was not convinced that this is how a young boy would speak. I would expect both boys to have a distinct vernacular.
     I did feel that there would have been more of an aftermath to Brother Donatus’ attacks and a relating of the psychological impact on the boys as they became men. This was their story and I wanted to follow those stories on the landscape without it intruding.
     I learnt more about my country and that was worthwhile.
This is an important story and I hope many people read it because it records the forming of our post settlement nation. Understanding our past helps to explain the present and perhaps heal the future.

Review by: Suraya Dewing
The Story Mint www.thestorymint.com

Title: Orphanage Boys
Author: A.N. Arthur
Publisher: Rangitawa Publishing
ISBN: 9780994138217
RRP: Amazon $38 incl. postage: $30 via facebook
Available: Amazon; or via AN Arthur https://www.anarthur.com/ or Facebook www.facebook.com/an.arthur.3

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Wide range of poetry styles

6/7/2017

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Selected Poems
by Ian Wedde

This handsome collection represents a very small part of Ian Wedde’s poetry career, a career which began in 1971. He doesn’t say exactly what prompted this collection at this time, but his remarks in the introduction give us a good idea:
  “Not a few poems have been written about the passing of time and it’s good that they can make sense of that craziness, but often it’s better when they refuse to. I like it when language messes up the orderly sequentiality of time passing, the trustworthiness of grammar’s timetables, the reliability of rational thought – and especially the self as centred meaning-maker.” He continues: “I enjoy the ways in which language can be our co-conspirator in subverting the too-predictable meeting of the sign with its meaning or referent – can encourage our scepticism of the over-confident mot juste and its denial of the carnivalesque.” [p x]
     Given this for starters, it’s no surprise that the collection ranges over many poetic styles and registers. The long “Letter to Peter McLeavey” cites Basho for style and plays with labels, as might well be appropriate for an art gallery mindset:
‘Suddenly
   the
     lake.’
   The ‘Sahara’, the ‘Oasis’,
   the ‘Chateau Suisse’
   and the ‘Tasty Thai’. [p 235]
Earlier, the “Commonplace Odes” sequence greets the muse, absent friends, dogs, and the poet’s own mirror in a distant hotel room – Horace channelling Allen Ginsberg [sic, since time is weird]:
   How gravely my weight wants to go to earth,
   Tagged down by good living, by love,
   And by spiteful tiredness brought on by the knuckle-
   Cracking Cotton Mathers of cultural bureaucracy.   [p 189]
This series of odes is the centre of the book. It calls upon a range of people, inspirations, episodes in the poet’s life – and, above all, the classical tradition which influences so many of the poems included here.
Poems published in his 2013 collection “The Lifeguard” seem to celebrate individuals, personalities, who have made a difference to Wedde, people who matter(ed). He begins the sequence “You have to start somewhere/in these morose times,” (p 278). Then he invokes Theocritus, Ovid, “my great-grandfather Heinrich August”, Helen Schofield, veterinarian, Geoff Park, ecologist, Bill Culbert, artist – all building up to the final “Shadow stands up”. The earlier poems mention individuals, but I get the feeling they are there to serve a purpose, not to be celebrated in their own right.
The collection has a wide range of styles and formats – no limericks or terza rima epics, but just about everything in between. It’s a fine introduction to the poetry of a New Zealand writer.

Review by Mary Cresswell

Title: Selected Poems
Author: Ian Wedde
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 978 1 86940 859 6
RRP: $39.99
Available: bookshops

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Tribute to a dog

6/1/2017

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Jem
by Barry Johns

Most people will have memories of a much-loved pet that shared their life for some years, and which seems to them to be worthy of wider ongoing appreciation. All such readers will understand the reason behind the publication of this small book.
Jem, of mixed-breed, might have had potential as a hunting dog. That didn’t eventuate. Perhaps as a pig-hunter then, but that trial didn’t work out either. It’s not that she couldn’t hunt - rabbits no problem, and cat-owners will be happier avoiding her story. It was as a companion, and meeter-and-greeter at the owner’s vineyard property, that Jem found her forte.
To those who didn’t know her, Jem may seem no more special than any other well-remembered animal companion. But not many pet owners go to the trouble of publishing a book in their honour. It’s small - 40 pages, about 3500 words - and very well presented.
Jem is a memorial to a dog who was “loyal, friendly, loving and the best company”, and tribute to the love that exists between humans and animals.

Review by Al Fabet

Title: Jem
Author: Barry Johns
Publisher: BJ Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-473-37823-3
RRP: $20
Available: selected retail shops in Christchurch, Christchurch Libraries, via www.oogywawa.co.nz at $22.99 (incl. postage ) within NZ.

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Murder in the future

5/26/2017

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Notice of Death (Book 3 in the Ryxin trilogy)
by Genesis Cotterell

Revenge is the underlying theme of this third murder mystery, set in New Zealand some time in the future.
Since there are different laws for different ethnic groups – Humans and Ryxins – private Ryxin investigators Curtis McCoy and Janux Lennan have the task of finding the dead Ryxin woman’s killer. Janux is close to completing her PI training – an achievement which will make her Curtis’s partner in the agency and will allow them to legitimise their own relationship as a couple. During this investigation, we see Janux finally realising her own worth as an investigator and sticking up for herself in her work and personal relationships with Curtis.
Once again, as in the first two books in the trilogy, in Notice of Death, Cotterell’s low-key writing style can lull the reader into thinking that this is an easy read. And once again, there is much more lurking between the lines. As well as the question of revenge versus forgiveness, and whether or not revenge brings satisfaction and peace, Cotterell deals with issues such as adult bullying and the trilogy’s recurring theme of first and second-class citizenship.
Although Curtis and Janux drink an alarming amount of whisky in this book, they do manage to solve the latest mystery along with an overlapping cold case, so that the trilogy is brought to a fairly satisfying conclusion.
Janux has matured greatly since we first met her as the widow of a recent murder victim in Murder on Muritai (Book 1 in the trilogy) and as most of the main figures in Notice of Death are women, this book unfolds largely from her point of view.
I would have liked to see Curtis become a warmer, more sensitive man, but without other Ryxin men to compare him with, it is impossible to know whether he could ever share any of the positive traits of modern human men as we know them. Because he remains cool and distant, I found the way he resolves his personal quandary at the close of the book rather superficial, hasty and disappointing.
Readers coming to the Ryxin world of Muritai Island without having read Books 1 and 2 in the trilogy will be wondering who on earth the Ryxins are. I feel a brief overview of Ryxin lore, at the beginning of the book, would be useful to new readers and a helpful reminder to those of us who have already enjoyed Murder on Muritai and The Forbidden Gene.

Review by Carolyn McKenzie
Writer, freelance proofreader, copy editor, and translator from Italian to English.
Carolyn kindly offers accommodation at reasonable rates for FlaxFlower writers
in Thames (Waikato) and Ventimiglia Alta (Liguria, Italy ). carolynmckenzie@libero.it

ED NOTE: Murder on Muritai, Book 1 in the Ryxin Trilogy, was reviewed on this site on 13 July 2016, and Book 2 on 15 November 2016. Access the reviews via Archives on right sidebar. They are both available, RRP print $30, from the author’s website, Wheelers Books; Beattie & Forbes Bookseller, Napier; Onekawa Books & Gifts, Napier. Digital: Amazon.

Title: Notice of Death — Book 3 of The Ryxin Trilogy
Author: Genesis Cotterell
Publisher: P Hayes
ISBN: 978-0-473-39638-1 (Print); ASIN: B01NH9U4AZ (Amazon Kindle)
RRP: $30 Print Copy
Available: Print: From author’s website: genesiscotterell.com (contact form); and Wheelers Books. Digital: Amazon

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A challenging experience

5/18/2017

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The Roaring Silence: A compendium of interviews, essays, poetry, art and prose about suicide

This book is a compendium about suicide. And that makes it hard to review. I can say that Amelia Harris and Julia West have done a good job in the editing and design of the book. Certainly the design is impressive, both in the cover and the page layout.
     The Roaring Silence is a mixture of text and art, with some interviews in the first section. Then comes some poetry, followed by the art and cartoon work on higher quality paper. This is followed by a section called ‘Raw’, a title which conveys the kind of writing by the authors, and then there’s another prose section at the end.
While the reader will expect to read about some really ‘raw’ and painful experiences, these are mainly the stories of survivors. Most of them are by locals trying to exist in communities, and cope with personal issues and their role in families. There is also some writing from professional authors living overseas. This adds to the mix but I wondered whether the underlying theme, how New Zealanders deal with this issue, was somewhat diluted. But mostly I wondered whether any amount of writing could actually change – if not minds, then perhaps – perceptions. Apart from the more factual subject matter in some of the interviews, everything seems so subjective.
     Due to the very personal experiences being shared it is difficult to refer to the specific pieces of writing in The Roaring Silence. Though I did find Natasha Lay’s piece very effective, ‘Death and Taxes’, which has also been performed as a play. The writing refers to the experience of a friend, named Sylvia, who begins to regain control of her own situation through her perseverance in filling out her tax return. The interaction with a phoneline staffer adds perspective, but the tale is designed to show how to de-stigmatise the conversation about suicide. As Lay writes, people usually don’t want anything to do with discussing the suicide option, which is a way of demonising it.
As the reviewer should I state a personal position as well? I’m squeamish about suicide because my cousin killed herself, and the family did get some warning about her state from a friend. Confronting the subject matter in The Roaring Silence has not really changed my mind on this, or the assumed link with a depressive illness being a cause. In this case it turned out to be a history of partner control and abuse, rather than an assessment of individual psychological illness, that was causative. I think this kind of situation has not been highlighted in the book, i.e. reactions to bad relationships.
     Anyway, I was impressed with the artwork in the book, and thought there could have been more. In fact, I think it would be easier to read the book if the artwork and cartoons were interspersed with the text, rather than being in a separate section. But, overall, The Roaring Silence is a challenging experience and worthy of consideration.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: The Roaring Silence: A compendium of interviews, essays, poetry, art and prose about suicide
Editor: Amelia Harris
RRP: $30.00
Publisher: The Depot Press
ISBN: 978 0473 377458
RRP: $30.00 + post
Available: Email: margaux.wong@depotartspace.co.nz

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Fast paced thriller

5/9/2017

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The Chinese Proverb
by Tina Clough

The minimalistic, but striking cover hints at the premise of the novel; if you save a life you are now responsible for the person you rescued.
Afghanistan war veteran, Hunter Grant, willingly embraces this concept when he finds a stranger near death on his remote Northland bush property. The mystery deepens when he discovers she’d been shackled and was prepared to die rather than be recaptured by her tormentor; whom she refers to as Master.
By page two I was hooked by the foreboding sense of danger and I wanted to know Dao’s backstory of how she’d been enslaved and escaped, and why she was still being hunted.
Emotionally scarred by his war experiences, Hunter has maintained a distance within his relationships with women. Now he has to open up his feelings so he can handle Dao’s fragile physical and mental state, and gain her trust so she will divulge the secrets of her past life, before Master tracks her down and eliminates her.
Hunter, places himself firmly in the firing line as they unravel the mystery of Dao’s life, but Dao is more than a victim, she’s a survivor, who has her own role to play in her destiny. As the story develops the complexity of her character is revealed. The bond between Scruff, Hunter’s dog, and Dao enhances the human aspects of the unfolding drama, as the details of her horrific ordeal are uncovered.
The book pages are cleanly presented in a no fuss style. There’s a clearly defined timeline as the story is filtered through Hunter’s point of view. Crisp descriptive language visually portrays the rural forest settings and the urban cityscape of Auckland.
Suspense fuels this tightly written and fast paced New Zealand thriller that grips from the beginning.

Review by Wendy Scott

Title: The Chinese Proverb
Author: Tina Clough
Publisher: Lightpool Publishing
ISBN: 978-0473379261
RRP: $34.99
Available: Bookshops

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Something of exceptional value

5/1/2017

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Māori Oral Tradition: He Kōrero nō te Ao Tawhito
by Jane McRae

Most New Zealanders will be familiar with certain names, incidents or texts from Māori oral tradition: migration stories, or the exploits of Māui, for instance. These are from a tradition of huge variety and depth, much of it transcribed during the nineteenth century either directly by Māori, or through collections assembled by interested Pākehā.
This book offers a way of looking at those traditions, dividing them into categories according to their structure and purpose. So we have genealogies (whakapapa), sayings and proverbs (whakataukī), narratives, histories, stories and myths (kōrero), and songs and chants (waiata)
Illustrative examples in Maori, with English translations, are given throughout. Even those with little knowledge of Māori language will find it rewarding to read aloud the Māori versions, in order to hear the rhythms and imagine the dramatic pauses and emphases – those things that are lost in translation and, to some extent, simply by being put into writing.
Language both affects the way the world is viewed and, in turn, is heavily influenced by that world view. In considering Māori oral traditions, the author demonstrates how particular words and phrases, or particular names, were used to prompt the recollection of incidents or other people or stories associated with them. Thus what might seem to a reader of the transcripts to be overly brief or incomplete narratives would have been, to the listeners on the marae, oral performances rich in meaning.
Throughout the book, there is commentary on and illustration of the way the traditions reflect the inner life of Māori in the old world – the deep significance of immediate family and of wider social groupings, of ties to land, of key ancestral figures, of reciprocities, the satisfaction of victories and the pain of defeats. There is drama. There is poetry. It is a literature unique to this country, yet it is an important part, too, of universal oral traditions, and thus of world literature. Furthermore, as the author points out, these oral traditions continue to be “a real and influential part of the Māori world.”
The author says: “Knowledge in the oral society…did not come from one kind of text alone…” Indeed not; and the same could be said of the ‘literary’ world. A reading of the novels from, say, Victorian England, will provide a deeper, more intuitive knowledge of what it was like to have been a part of life there, in that time, than could any history book. We understand the past best when we experience it through the literature, oral or written, of those who lived it.
It is impossible in a brief review to pay sufficient tribute to the accessible style in which this book is written, and to the many significant issues that are raised in it. The author states that one of her main aims in writing it was to encourage Māori language and literature students to discover more of the riches to be found in the “manuscript trove” of transcribed oral literature; and surely any such student reading the book would be enthused. But for the general reader, the book offers insights into the contribution Māori oral tradition can make to an understanding of what it should mean to be a New Zealander, and what it means to be human.
Auckland University Press has played its part in making this book pleasurable. The layout is neat and reader-friendly. The scholarly endnotes, and the comprehensive bibliography and index, are useful without being obtrusive. It has that rare thing, a cover that enhances the text, the symbolism incorporated there being succinctly explained in a note on the reverse of the title page. Physically, the book provides the sort of tactile and visual pleasure that is exclusive to an admirably assembled combination of ink and paper.
But of course it really comes down to the text, and without doubt the author has written something of exceptional value. Read it. Be enriched.

Review by Tony Chapelle

Title: Māori Oral Tradition: He Kōrero nō te Ao Tawhito
Author: Jane McRae
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 978 1 86940 861 9
RRP: $45
Available: bookshops

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Story will stay in reader’s memory

4/19/2017

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Brushstrokes of Memory
by Karen McMillan

As befits the title, and the profession of the main character, this novel has an artistic cover and well-chosen internal design. It’s an attractive book.
Will the literary content support the visual appeal? I haven’t read this author’s work before, so for me it’s a case of starting with a blank canvas.
Storyline – after an accident Rebecca has memory loss. Almost ten years of her life have disappeared. In her words:

I went to the bathroom and glanced at myself in the mirror and then looked at myself again with alarm. I had fine lines around my eyes, forehead and mouth that I had never seen before….I took my glasses off and the lines disappeared; I put my glasses back on again and there they were. I had thought I was doing okay for my age, but it turned out I just hadn’t been able to see myself properly because my eyesight had deteriorated.

     You’d want to recover those years, wouldn’t you? Naturally, Rebecca does. But her husband, and her best friend, would both prefer that she doesn’t recover all the memories – for different reasons. However, as time passes there’s one crucial fact that they agree she needs to know. It’s an enticing scenario, and one that had me more than willing to read on.
     The narration switches chapter by chapter, so the viewpoints of each of the three are revealed. Rebecca’s current thoughts are supported by entries from a diary she kept during a key time in her comparatively recent past.
     The characters are very real – each one having her or his own voice. The writing is good, apart from some phrases, particularly within dialogue, that come across as a little forced.
     This is a story that is bound to stay in a reader’s own memory as each one of us must wonder how we would cope under similar circumstances.

Review by Norma D Plum

Title: Brushstrokes of Memory
Author: Karen McMillan
Publisher: McKenzie Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-473-37435-8
RRP: $34.99
Available: Bookshops

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Excellent advice on mortgages

4/12/2017

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Hammer that mortgage (revised, updated)
by David Tillman

David Tillman is a banker turned labourer turned mortgage broker, and he brings his lifetime of dealing with mortgages to this book. He covers every aspect of first obtaining, then reducing a mortgage as quickly as possible.
The book covers all the known techniques of reducing the cost of a mortgage over its term – dealing with interest stress testing, revolving lines of credit, offset mortgages, splitting loans into fixed, revolving and floating portions, combinations of these ideas, and includes guidelines for deciding which is the right method for you. The book uses examples of typical couples to illustrate the various techniques of managing loans.
It covers such ideas as the “Latte mortgage” where the money spent on a daily cup of coffee is added to the monthly payments, showing how savings of tens of thousands of dollars of interest over the term of a loan can be made. If these topics seem too complicated then David advises seeing a mortgage broker to guide you through the options available to you.
This is a second edition of the book, and it now includes a very good section on using Kiwisaver to obtain a deposit and then get a loan. There would be few New Zealanders who are totally familiar with all the assistance available to them from Kiwisaver, and this alone is worth many times the cost of the book.
There are many tables and graphs showing the effects of increasing the monthly or weekly payments, and these make compelling motivation for following his recommendations.
Tillman’s section on stress testing a mortgage should be required reading for the many young people who do not seem to regard a mortgage as a debt, but just as a fact of life as they have no intention of paying it off, even regarding the increasing value of their property as spending money. This book points out the disaster that can follow such an attitude, if interest rates rise and house values fall even a little. He bases his projections on an interest rate of 6%, which seems historically low, so if rates rise above this then all sorts of problems arise.
He includes a section on his own story, telling how he obtained a loan and then paid it off in five years, despite being in a low paid job, but devoting all his energy to clearing the debt.
I think it is an excellent book, I liked the appearance of the text, and the layout of the chapters, but feel that more space could be devoted to the complex business of combo loans, because these can be tailored to an individual’s circumstances and they can offer the most savings, while still offering a reasonable lifestyle. Some of the stories, while making good points are a little simplistic and trite.
Overall, I think everyone thinking about borrowing, or even those with an existing loan should get a copy of this book.

Review by Harold Bernard

Title: Hammer That Mortgage
Author: David Tillman
Publisher: Mortgage Freedom NZ Ltd
ISNB: 978-0-473-37154-8
RRP: $29.99

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Well written stories

3/24/2017

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The Lost of Syros
By Emma Timpany

Emma Timpany is a New Zealand-born writer who currently lives in Cornwall, England, where she has been successful with her entries in several short story competitions.
This collection is slim but all 16 stories are worth reading as their author shows herself to have mastered the genre.
They are well constructed, the situations and observations perceptive, and the writing is well-judged – not verbose or overdone. Word use is well chosen to reveal scenes and evoke thoughts and memories in the reader.

The diagnosis is pleurisy. Outside, a gorgeous spring’s dispensing its own medicine, a string of warm blue days. Katie’s told to rest and eat, and do nothing else. I fill her room with bluebells. She says they smell like honey. An elderly maid, her skin as crumpled and brown as a walnut shell, brings Katie gooseberry jam on thin slices of buttered bread cut into little triangles. Food to lure fairies from their lairs, Katie calls it.

Many are of the stories are set in New Zealand, but there are other locations to provide variety. The title story, for instance, is a memory of a holiday in the Greek Islands, recalled from its narrator’s residence in London.
Lengths vary from under three pages to ten pages – none too long for their subjects. The choice of narration in each case is appropriate. The order in which they are placed, and the interior design could be tweaked, but these are minor quibbles in a collection of well-written stories.

Review by J.M.

Title: The Lost of Syros
Author: Emma Timpany
Publisher: Cultured Llama Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9932119-2-8
RRP: RRP £12.00
Available: Print from www.culturedllama.co.uk, Amazon, The Book Depository, Waterstone's and other online retailers.
https://emmatimpany.wordpress.com @CornishShorts

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An important story

Wide range of poetry styles

Tribute to a dog

Murder in the future

A challenging experience

Fast paced thriller

Something of exceptional value

Story will stay in reader’s memory

Excellent advice on mortgages

Well written stories

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