Book review: Publishing’s perceived wisdom is that an author’s second book is the tricky one, especially if it follows an impressive debut. Readers wait with high hopes. Critics wait with lowered brows. So Taranaki’s Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngā Rauru) set himself a hard act to follow after his passionate, poignant The Bone Tree.
His 16 short (and they mostly are) stories making up Pātea Boys come in a neatly inverted English/te reo format. “Inverted”? Pick up the book and you’ll see what I mean.
The same group of South Taranaki characters thread through the narratives. They’re mostly male teens or tweens, aching to join “the big boy crew”, looked after by nans and aunties, trying to act responsibly towards little sister, sometimes already headed for the problems that beset “Māori boys who didn’t do what they were told”.
Brotherhood, literal or metaphorical, unites many of them. It can be the foot-shuffling male lyricism of two lads sitting on a bridge, fantasising and shoulder-punching about the woman driver who has passed, “looking me up and down, licking her lips. Like I was a steak or something.” Or it’s learning responsibility via a smashed-up car, a freaked-out girlfriend (“the missus” – nice) and a bloodied nose. The fact that such affection – make that love, in some cases – is mostly conveyed via insults and elbows in ribs makes it only more authentic.
Ngarewa is good at turning the ordinary into the emblematic, just as he was in The Bone Tree. A kid suspended in mid-air, performing a forbidden bomb into the Pātea Baths, is simultaneously in the world of Tangaroa (the sea god) and the mundane plane of chips with tomato sauce. A relic hidden for years in a riverbed is discovered by the most ill-qualified duo imaginable, who see it in terms of TV fame and mythical significance. (The relic tells this story, grumbling at his finders and their grammar. Excellent.)
Some pleasingly irreverent humour: the choice of pork bones and puha, plus watercress or brisket, in a boil-up becomes a guide to personalities. Beware of those who want to include pre-cooked sausages. Some very topical references: mixed martial arts fighter Israel Adesanya is admired.
Those in authority are treated more thoughtfully than in Ngarewa’s debut. This means fewer caricatures, which is good. There’s no romanticising, which is also good. Pātea should feel pleased: its author doesn’t hesitate to point out problems – “Half of the pā are still drunk and the other half hungover … another Warrior’s hiding on the field” – but he also makes it a symbol of heroic, historic resistance and a place that’s defiant, dignified, rich with ancestral and whānau support and identity. Families endure, support, bicker, hold strong. The stories grow towards an ending with acceptance and resolution.
So, here’s this old Pākehā reviewer who’s read both books by this young Māori author. He reckons you should do the same – and soon.
Pātea Boys, by Airana Ngarewa (Moa Press, $36.99), is out now.
