Laura Jean McKay is hunkered down in Palmerston North but her much-hyped novel The Animals in That Country is out there in the world – earlier than expected, too, because it’s about a strange new flu. Two women stand close to each other in an aisle labelled CANS. They’re young, with strong pink arms in … Read more
After editing The Luminaries, UK writer Max Porter released his own astronomically good book, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers. His new novel Lanny is short and strange; every page squishes with imagery, a rich compost of words. It begins: Dead Papa Toothwort wakes from his standing nap an acre wide and scrapes off dream dregs … Read more
Crocodiles, gold bars, birds of prey… and boobs. Erin Harrington, an academic specialising in horror and film, reviews the much-hyped new novel by the man who gave us Dr Hannibal Lecter. Cari Mora is Thomas Harris’s first novel in 13 years, and the first since his 1975 debut Black Sunday that doesn’t feature his most … Read more
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the long-awaited – and outstanding – novel by Marlon James, who won the Man Booker prize four years ago with A Brief History of Seven Killings. It was some canny marketing to release a book self-described as the “African Game of Thrones” just before the final season on TV of the actual Game of … Read more
Dominic Hoey shares the music-related parts of his new novel Iceland and makes a playlist so you can play along while reading. Music features heavily in my novel Iceland and since we’re living in the future, I thought I’d put together a Spotify playlist of all the songs and/or artists I mention. I got the … Read more
An essay by New Zealand’s best social realist novelist in response to the incredible My Struggle series. This really happened. One evening, when I was standing with my siblings at a party, a woman approached who was familiar and yet unknown. We all had the same split-second reaction: who is this stranger we know so well? … Read more