What a merry mixture. Comparable with the
unlikely combinations that surf across the palate in the Christmas season. Liquorice
toffee with the morning cuppa. Whipped cream and gin-laced strawberries with
meusli. Cold new potatoes for elevenses. Eclectic and mostly agreeable.
Thirty-odd writers are represented in this
collection, the proceeds of which go to IHC. Almost all stories induced me by
their content or brevity to read the whole. All possessed flavour, colour and
form. Some were chewy and puzzling, others a bit raw (in theme or delivery). Some
were experimental, with mixed results. A couple were exquisite.
Between them the writers conjure
embarrassment, domestic abuse, grief and catharsis, murder, birds, love,
babysitting, rest-homes, islands, departures, lost parents, a war vet, a dog, a
piano … life, life (mostly) in NZ.
Of those that combine fine writing and satisfying
construction, these are memorable: Kate Mahoney’s ‘My Mother and the UFO’ with
its sensitive forays into the complex layers of feeling and need between the
narrator and her Alzheimic mother. Gay Buckingham considers how the paralysis
of grief might be ended (‘In Bath, in Autumn’). In a very small setting (‘What
Anton Learns in the Queue’) Janis Freegard’s character is drawn deftly into
identification with otherworldly Bernadette and into taking his next necessary
step. Grief fastens onto anxiety about hair in ‘These Last Desires’ by Wes Lee.
Jo Randerson touches powerfully (and with delicate skepticism) on fate and the
numinous with her story within a story, ‘The Great Balance’. In ‘The Snack
Machine’, Lawrence Patchett provides a somehow languorous but sharply observed
‘slice of life’ between a man with a sore back and his girlfriend’s energetic
son. ‘Flower, Flowers’ by Wendy Moore summons another country/city and a
dangerous liaison with eternal (or at least annual) consequences. In ‘Moonlight
Crossing’, Deb Potter’s character — carrying ashes — feels out the bushline by
night, and B.L.Stocker in ‘Nobody’s wife’, subtly evokes a pivotal moment in a marriage.
Maggie Rainey-Smith’s protagonist looking ‘Through the Belgian Glass’ is a
satisfying study: a personality captured and worried into exposure.
This was a collaborative project envisioned
by a writing group, its production supported voluntarily by others, with Blair
Polly and Wendy Moore as project editors. Well done, Team Sweet As. There’s something
for everyone here. I suggest you buy
a copy. Or buy several to encourage 30 Kiwi writers and support IHC Wellington.
Penelope Todd
January 2015
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