Two homegrown writing debuts show promise

Alison Wong's first novel is modest in style, generous in tone, accomplished in structure; wide-ranging in characters. It's not surprising that overseas publishers are interested.

The Titahi Bay author, almost inevitably a graduate of Victoria University's writing school, sets her story at the start of the 20th century, when a Chinese person on a central Wellington street is an instant target for beggars and bigots, name-calling and plait-pulling.

Racism is one of the book's central motifs, in poems lip-smackingly recited by an apparently cultured lunch guest, stones thrown through a greengrocer's window, a Prime Minister quite unabashed by his membership of an anti-Asian faction.

It's not only Chinese who are targeted. Maori are apparently dying out — and a good thing too, say People In Power. There are also the situations vacant ads: "Maid required for light duties by respectable gentleman. No Irish need apply." And there's the prejudice against women, in the smug misogyny of Truby King et al. But it's "John Chinaman" who is victimised most.

Amid the bigotry, a love affair begins, between Yung the quick-minded, quick-fisted shopkeeper, ridding himself of his long rope of hair and his premises of invading thugs, and Katherine, with her caricature of a bullying husband (who has the decency to fall drunk into Wellington Harbour).

Both parties feel "an emptiness, a hungry space". Both are dissatisfied with convention or tradition, and are ready for transformation. Things start under a cabbage tree by the Basin Reserve, and lead via delight and terror to an ending on a shop floor.

A quick shuttle of chapters keeps the plot pulsing along. Wong spreads complex nets of love and grief that catch up nearly every character. She does an impressively unshowy job of capturing the varied voices.

Period details feel just right. There's Mrs Newman the emancipist, fuming against being addressed by her husband's name and celebrating the first women in the Olympics. There's the jingoistic marching and cheering as WWI is declared. And there's a splendidly-evoked Haining Street, with "the smell of garlic and ginger", where a European shoots an Asian walking home, then defends himself with the argument that a Chinese "is not a man".

You could suggest that the ending is a bit prolonged and unremitting. You could also suggest that there's a whiff of Mills & Boon about the love affair, with its lingering glances, meaningful hand-touchings, and fireworks going off inside. But this is a striking and successful debut. Bring on Alison Wong's next one(s).
As the Earth Turns Silver $37: reviewed by David Hill
David Hill is a Taranaki writer.

The worlds of journalism and literature might seem complementary. After all, the art of writing unites them. Beyond this though, journos and novelists have more that divides than connects them. Primarily, journalists are guided by facts. For them, an article must concentrate upon the "who, what, where and why"; whereas for novelists, facts are the inspiration for make-believe. Unsurprisingly, the inventory of successful journalists turned triumphant novelists is relatively short — Robert Harris, Tom Wolfe and Chuck Palahniuk to name but a few. Former Press and North and South reporter Lyn Loates is trying to add her name to this list.

Her first novel, Butterscotch, is a dark, often compelling tale set in 1950s Christchurch about 8-year-old Helen Mainyard's connection to a number of murky goings-on, including the Parker-Hulme murder. Though Butterscotch occasionally becomes loaded down by journalistic excess, it showcases Loates as a fiction writer of immense promise.

Primarily, it's a plot-driven narrative, and what a plot. The notorious "Moider" case; Helen's links to an imposing home, Amberley; a series of adult flashbacks that haunt the heroine just as she's about to attend Cambridge University: Loates weaves it all together with gripping import.

It would have been easy for much of this subject matter to appear repetitive, particularly the Parker-Hulme case, which has had such an impact on the national psyche. But Loates offers something fresh in her depiction of Parker-Hulme, using it as background and symbolic motif for the other, at times, far more menacing secrets at the heart of the book.

Her construction of young Helen is crucial. Loates layers her protagonist with credible complexity. Naive and perceptive; lively and passive; curious and spiteful: Helen is a well-drawn representation of childhood. Through her, Loates drip-feeds the missing pieces of memory which makes her storyline work.

Given the successful ploy of Helen's flashbacks, it's surprising Loates chose not to deploy it with some of the secondary characters, such as Helen's teachers, Alvi Warbrick and Julian Pink.

Rather than trickle their pasts and presents to us, Loates relies on journalistic technique to swamp them in an accumulation of reasons for their existences, job choices, familial histories and so forth.

The result is that sometimes the storytelling bears more likeness to a chronicle-cum-biography. This latter point aside, Butterscotch remains a
deft historical whodunnit.
Buttersctoch $34.99: reviewed by Shiobhan Harvey
Siobhan Harvey is an Auckland writer