SWIMMERS’ ROPE
Stephanie Johnson – Vintage - $29.99

Stephanie Johnson is one of the queens of New Zealand literary fiction with her eighth novel now published to go alongside her three collections of short stories and two poetry anthologies.
She is also the co-founder of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

On the eve of the general election, her friends, family and publishing colleagues packed out the Women’s Bookshop to celebrate the launch of her seventh novel, Swimmers' Rope.
It was a lively and colourful night, not least because Helen Clark was invited by Carole Beu, owner of the Women’s Bookshop and Labour Party activist, to ‘gate-crash’ the launch after dining at a nearby Thai restaurant. This the PM happily did, incorporating it into her procession down Ponsonby Road.

Peter Wells, writer and co-founder of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, officially launched Swimmer’s Rope; a transcript of his poignant and heartfelt speech is included below.

It is my great pleasure to be launching Stephanie Johnson’s ‘Swimmer’s Rope’ this evening. I got the book in the post a few weeks ago - I opened it, was delighted with the cover, flicked throuh it and came apon two initials which immediately struck me. P.W. I thought to myself - hmmm Pam Westaway, Paul Wheatcliffe....surely not, Peter Wells. A few nervous, tenderly apprehensive emails later revealed I was indeed the person behind the initials. Then Stephanie sprang the trap. Would I like to launch the book? Yes of course....But what if I didn’t like the book? What if I hated it....So Stephanie’s nervous queries ran.

‘What if' is a semi permanent state of madness which infects the author somewhere in between returning the proofs and getting the first copy...that dreadful moment when you realise that something you’ve written in the consenting privacy of your room is about to be bruited wide and far around the world (you hope).

Well, I can safely report back that - indeed - I do very much like this book. From its swift opening, one immediately feels one is back in a known Johnsonian universe - a Steph Hyphen Johnsonian universe - the past is raptly evoked - suburbs, streets, places which no longer exist are expertly limned in. As an old Aucklander and inhabitant of Herne Bay - now departed - I was delighted to revisit a world I could just recognise and sense around me.

Few Aucklanders have evoked the city with such clemency, such almost furious poetry - such attention to the bend in streets, to vanished sights and places.
I myself love the past - I often find myself a footsore wanderer in that magic and limitless realm. It is a beautiful thing to find a fellow traveller. And with such a tale to tell.

This is a story of incidental love, accidental love, the pity of love, the danger of love, the problems of denying love. What a magnificent subject. That one of the lead characters is a musician also seems wondrous. Stephanie herself, I know, was a talented cello player and she brings to her central character Noel all her own passion for the sounds and inner landscape of music.

This is a wonderful New Zealand novel.
One wishes one could say it was a wonderful novel, written by a NZer celebrated in London, NY, Dubai and Nandi. It is better than that. It is a novel by and for and about and of this culture. S’s writing is a tree growing in the forest of NZ literature, a tree full of singing birds - some with discordant notes, it is true, some angry but then there is always - and it's important to remember this - the birds with the lyrical song, the birds with the distant call, the birds which show you that you are, indeed, in the only place you can be - the best place on earth - home.

This is a good book, a fine read, a lovely addition to the forest of voices.