THE NIGHT BOOK
Charlotte Grimshaw
Vintage – NZ$36.99

I read chapter one while having a coffee in Ponsonby on Friday morning (and was immediately arrested) and then the rest of the book in one sitting that night on a flight from Auckland to Bangkok.

Charlotte Grimshaw is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Provocation, Guilt and Foreign City. In 2000 she was awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship. In 2006 she won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award and in 2007 she won a Book Council Six Pack prize. Her story collection Opportunity was short listed for the 2007 Frank O’Connor International Prize, and, in 2008, Opportunity won New Zealand’s premier Montana award for fiction, along with the Montana medal. She was also the 2008 Montana Book Reviewer of the year. Her story collection Singularity was short listed for the 2009 Frank O’Connor International Prize and the South East Asia and Pacific section of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
She is one of a number of talented NZ women writers to emerge over the past decade whose work is always keenly awaited, put Emily Perkins and Paula Morris in that group as well.

The Night Book in set in contemporary New Zealand, largely, but not only, in affluent suburban Auckland, and is peopled by a bunch of diverse characters, some admirable, most not. The two chief protagonists are Dr.Simon Lampton (he also appeared in her short story collections, Opportunity & Singularity) and Roza Hallwright the wife of the leader of the National Party. It is an interesting take on contemporary New Zealand society and politics.
The Night Book also has much to say about the complexity of relationships, of love for children and of escaping the past. Throw in infidelity, political ambitions, teenage angst , step-children and adoption. A strong mix all well handled in the author’s usual accomplished manner

Publication 11 May, the author will be appearing at the Auckland Writers & Readers Week.