Fiona Kidman: The Best New Zealand Fiction Volume 2

Fiona Kidman's Best New Zealand Fiction series is emerging as a valuable addition to our literary landscape. And encouragingly, we learn from the introduction that whereas she sought out the stories that furnished last year's collection from their authors, for this year's second volume she was in the happy position of chooser rather than beggar.

She has settled on somewhat elastic definitions of the terms Best New Zealand Fiction. The fictions include, for example, three novel extracts: from Philip Temple's forthcoming historical work set in 1930s Berlin; Karyn Hay's second, and another by Chris Else, also forthcoming.

One of the writers featured — Paula Morris — is an expatriate New Zealander, and another is not a New Zealander in any sense; Pierre Furlan's sole connection being his sojourn as the Randell Cottage Writer in Residence between October 2004 and March 2005.

I also felt the definition of Best was stretched in one or two cases, but any such selection is inevitably subjective.

Kidman also shrewdly imposed a 3000-word minimum on the pieces. As she notes in her introduction to the volume, there is a glut of 3000-word stories in the marketplace due to the practically universal 3000-word maximum prevailing in literary journals and short-story competitions.

You need only read the longer stories here, such as Annamarie Jagose's evocative At Waimama Bay, to regret that most outlets for local fiction impose such a Procrustean constraint.

The range of subjects covered, and the imaginative powers deployed, will gratify any fan of New Zealand literature.

Occasionally there are correspondences, such as the stories by William Brandt and Elizabeth Smither, both of which present unsettling experiences for empowered women.

Three of the stories are outstanding for their accomplishment in a traditional sense: Paula Morris's Rangatira is a beautiful historical recreation; Charlotte Grimshaw's taut and tense Opportunity has a cleverly executed plot twist; and while Tze Ming Mok may be unfamiliar to most readers, her copybook short story, Daily Special, promises that this is a temporary state of affairs.

 Only two of the writers — Gregory O'Brien and Witi Ihimaera — really play with the form, the former with notable success.

The pohutukawa blossom on the cover is apt. This is a book just made for leisurely summer reading.

* John McCrystal is a Wellington freelance writer
* Random House, $29.95