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The Spinoff
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Vale Maurice Gee, 1931
The great Aotearoa writer Maurice Gee has died. Books editor Claire Mabey pays tribute. Maurice Gee has died at the age of 93. In a statement sent to media, Gee's children Nigel, Emily and Abigail Gee confirmed that their father died peacefully in his longtime home in Nelson, the inspiration for many of his stories. 'He lived a long and full life and approached death with cheerfulness and calm. He asked us not to grieve,' read the statement. 'Our father touched the lives of many through his words and leaves behind a remarkable legacy in New Zealand literature.' Since the news of Gee's death broke on Sunday June 15, there has been an outpouring of gratitude from readers and writers across Aotearoa. Gee is the author of Plumb, which in a 2018 Spinoff poll was found to be New Zealand's favourite and best novel. He is also the author of Under the Mountain, one of the most enduring children's books we have. It is rare for an author to be acclaimed for writing both for adults and for children; but Gee took both audiences seriously – he wrote truthfully and fearlessly, always – and his writing in both worlds was equally beloved. Gee's novels for adults include The Plumb Trilogy – Plumb (1978), Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983) – In My Father's Den (1972), Live Bodies (1988), Crime Story (1994), and Ellie and the Shadow Man (2001). His novels for children include the fantasies Under the Mountain (1979), The World around the Corner (1980), the Halfmen of O trilogy – The Halfmen of O (1982), The Priests of Ferris (1984) and Motherstone (1985) – Salt (2007), Gool (2008), and The Severed Land (2017). He also wrote historic fiction for children including The Fat Man (1994), Hostel Girl (1999) and The Fire-Raiser (1986). Among Gee's awards and honours is the Robert Burns Fellowship in 1964; the Fiction Prize at the New Zealand Book Awards for Plumb in 1979; the Book of the Year at the AIM Children's Book Awards for The Halfmen of O in 1982; an honorary doctorate for literature from the University of Victoria in 1989; the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2004; the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards for Live Bodies in 1998; The New Zealand Post Young Adult Fiction award for Salt in 2008; and in 2017 Gee won the Copyright Licensing NZ Award for Young Adult Fiction for The Severed Land at the Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Gee published a collection of short stories in 1986; and in 2018 published a memoir in three parts, Memory Pieces. Gee's biographer is Rachel Barrowman who in 2015 published, Maurice Gee: Life and Work with Te Herenga Waka University Press. It is a remarkably detailed piece of work and one that reveals both the dark and the light of Gee's life. In a letter Gee wrote for the launch of Barrowman's biography, he said: 'Reading Rachel's book has been a strange experience for me. Seeing my life unroll again, or play as though on a screen, made me want to applaud myself for getting so much done, in work and relationships, and at other times had me squirming with embarrassment at my stupidities and shrinking with shame at cruelties and waste. 'It's all in the book. This is the biography I asked for when Rachel and I first spoke about it nine years ago. 'Put in whatever you can find,' I said, not quite understanding that she'd find so much. But I don't like biographies with holes in them. This one has no holes except for those Rachel has uncovered in her research and looked into with a clear eye. The research has been thorough, unrelenting, illuminating — illuminating even for me.' Many of the messages of gratitude and celebration for Gee are concerned with the sheer impact of his stories. A lot of Gee's struggles and triumphs are inside his fiction. For many, the slim, stunning children's novel Under the Mountain is a core memory. A great imaginative transference that stuck. One of the reasons Gee's story of slug-like aliens called the Wilberforces had such a tremendous effect on readers is that the danger was located in Auckland. It is difficult to look at Rangitoto without thinking of those voracious creatures turning the land to mud. Gee was always concerned with the upending of the environment and the potential for younger generations to heal such destruction. Gee is said to have described himself as 'a New Zealandy sort of writer living in a New Zealandy sort of place … writing New Zealandy sort of books.' It's this slant on home – that 'y' at the end – that both grounds his work and tilts it. Through Gee's novels we see ourselves from a fresh angle. We meet ourselves in Gee's places and in his ordinary, extraordinary people. Gee's Halfmen of O series gave his home of Nelson a portal to another world suffering under a totalitarian regime oppressing the voices of the land and destroying itself only for the pursuit of wealth. Gee wrote seriously for children: his worldbuilding is vibrant, startling, textured but it is also deeply enmeshed with the realities of oppressive and violent societies. Like the best children's writers, Gee never underestimated his reader's capacity to walk with him into these dangers and work out what was going on and what to learn from them. For many years professor Kathryn Walls taught an honours level English paper called New Zealand Children's Literature at Victoria University in which students would study the children's novels of Maurice Gee and Margaret Mahy. A rare example of academia looking at children's books to see how they worked, what they said about their authors; how they might reflect their time, and influence their readers. Like Mahy, Gee was one of the greatest writers New Zealand has ever had and he did not withhold that talent from young people. Gee's body of literature is revelatory in that it expresses a pattern of invention and research across depths and genre, never subjugating one audience for the other, but oscillating between them, using them in different ways. This pattern revealed a great respect for children's writing, and for children as serious readers, that is not always present in an industry that often sees writing for children as somehow a lesser pursuit. One of my favourite of Gee's adult novels is Ellie and the Shadow Man. It has lingered in me for years because it was one of the first novels I read about a woman living as an artist. Ellie Crowther is a painter whose work rises to acclaim. Only her canvases begin to be haunted by a figure who she calls her 'shadow man'. I have vivid memories of the ways Ellie's history starts to emerge, inform and entangle with her art. It is a novel that showed me that life – ordinary, difficult, eerie, troublesome, surprising life – can make great art. Every Gee fan will have their favourite novel. New fans have 35 books to explore and discover. In an interview with The Spinoff in 2024, when asked how he feels when he looks at his body of work, Gee said: 'I feel a sense of satisfaction and a sense that, considering all things, I've done as much and as well as I could have.' It is moving, painful, to think of Gee's work from this moment of great loss. But heartening to know that the great writer left this world satisfied and with a legacy that will live on for many years, and through many readers, to come. The Spinoff will be publishing a tribute page to honour the life and work of Maurice Gee. If you would like to contribute please contact clairemabey@
The Spinoff
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 13
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 A Different kind Of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) The former prime minister's reign continues! Do make sure you're buying the legit copy and not any of these AI fakes… 2 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The moving, immersive novel about an ageing couple navigating how to be in the last segments of their lives. 3 The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Random House, $38) The second novel from celebrated writer Ocean Vuong. Here's the publisher's blurb: 'One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.' 4 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) Did you know that former prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, has a podcast called A Pod of One's Own? Well now you do. And season seven, episode four is all about Butter. 5 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The sinister and spectacular alternate history that raises a lot of philosophical questions … a gripping read perfect for these rainy, wintry days. Read a review of this brilliant novel right here on The Spinoff. 6 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) The widely celebrated retelling of Huckleberry Finn. 7 Air by John Boyne (Doubleday, $35) The conclusion to Boyne's elements trilogy. Read Chris Reed's review over on Booklovers NZ. 8 There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak (Penguin Random House, $26) Turkish writer and activist Elif Shafak's latest, moving novel about the connections facilitated by bodies of water. 9 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Profile Books, $39) A terminally ill mother and her son road trip around Europe and reckon with themselves. 10 Assassin's Apprentice #1 Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (HarperCollins, $23) One for the fantasy addicts. Here's the blurb: 'The kingdom of the Six Duchies is on the brink of civil war when news breaks that the crown prince has fathered a bastard son and is shamed into abdication. The child's name is Fitz, and he is despised. Raised in the castle stables, only the company of the king's fool, the ragged children of the lower city, and his unusual affinity with animals provide Fitz with any comfort. To be useful to the crown, Fitz is trained as an assassin; and to use the traditional magic of the Farseer family. But his tutor, allied to another political faction, is determined to discredit, even kill him. Fitz must survive: for he may be destined to save the kingdom.' WELLINGTON 1 A Different Kind Of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) 2 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 3 Terrier, Worrier by Anna Jackson (Auckland University Press, $25) An absolutely stunning new book from poet Anna Jackson. A long-form poetic sort-of memoir it is gorgeous to read and a meditation on daily life as much as it is about the clouds of thought that follow us day in, day out. 4 A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (Allen and Unwin NZ, $37) A summer holiday you won't forget anytime soon. Here's a snippet from books editor Claire Mabey's review: 'Enter, the child. Trevelyan's narrator is 10 years old. She's unnamed until the very end of the book (I won't reveal it here: best to find out for yourself). It's this naive perspective that makes A Beautiful Family both easy to read and impossible to put down. The narrator's innocence is pitted against several disturbing factors, all orbiting her summer in various shapes and shades, and it's that persistent dance of disturbances that creates the sustained and unrelenting tension in the novel.' 5 What to Do When I'm Gone: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter by Suzy Hopkins and Hallie Bateman (Bloomsbury, $27) Winter seems a good time to contemplate this kind of inevitability? IDK. But here's the blurb: 'One sleepless night while she was in her early twenties, illustrator/writer Hallie Bateman had a painful realization: Someday, her mother would be gone. The prospect was devastating, and also scary – how would she navigate the world without the person who gave her life? She thought about all the motherly advice she would miss–advice that could help her through a host of future challenges that might arise, including the ordeal of losing a parent. The next day, Hallie asked her mother, writer Suzy Hopkins, to record step-by-step instructions for her to follow in the event of her mom's death. The list began: 'Pour yourself a stiff glass of whiskey and make some fajitas' and continued from there, walking Hallie through the days, months, and years of life after loss, with motherly guidance and support, addressing issues great and small–from choosing a life partner to baking a quiche. The project became a way for mother and daughter to discuss the everyday realities of grief, and to do so honestly, with humor, openness, and gratitude. It led to a book they hope will help other families have similar conversations.' 6 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 7 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) 8 Before the Winter Ends by Khadro Mohamed (Tender Press, $30) 'I pondered for a long time how I was going to write this review,' wrote Melissa Oliver in The Spinoff. 'I'd lost any sense of how to form a coherent thought or sentence. It is a book that completely took me away from my own life and my own ways of seeing the world. It's unlike anything I've read for a long time and will be a novel that a lot of people will not know they've been waiting for.' 9 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) The latest instalment from one of the most successful young adult series ever. 10 M āori Rafter & Tāniko Design by J. W. Phillipps (Oratia Books, $40) This is a republication of a classic book from 1943: 'This complete redesign of W.J. Phillipps' classic work introduces key patterns in an accessible manner with rich illustrations. Beginning with the koru, the book develops from analysis of drawings to real examples, including important meeting house designs. The beautifully rendered patterns gain new life in a generous layout that will be of value to students and experts alike.'
NZ Herald
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Top 10 bestselling books: June 7
Catherine Chidgey's The Book of Guilt holds fast at the top of the NZ bestsellers' list. Photos / Supplied 1. (1) The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press) Heading all the local charts for the third week running is Catherine Chidgey's latest novel, which tells the mysterious, ominous story of three boys in an alternative 1970s Britain. It's a 'tense, 'There is the hint of submerged identity; of aspiration and prosperity, rubbing skins with disappointment and neglect; a preoccupation with what is authentic and what is fraudulent; the self and truth only dimly visible … Calling on the deeply rooted psychological power of the storytelling rule of three, the novel is divided into The Book of Dreams, The Book of Knowledge and The Book of Guilt. Three women, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, care for a set of 13-year-old triplets in an all-boy's orphanage. There are three main narrative perspectives: Vincent, one of the triplets; the Minister of Loneliness, a government minister in charge of national care institutions known as the Sycamore Homes; and Nancy, a young girl kept in seclusion by fastidious older parents. This attention to pattern also coolly embodies the quest for order and control, the troubling obsession at the core of the fictional investigation.'
NZ Herald
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Top 10 bestselling NZ books: May 31
Our bestselling local books. Photos / Supplied 1. (1) The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press) Heading all the local charts for the second week running is Catherine Chidgey's latest novel, which tells the mysterious, ominous story of three boys in an alternative 1970s Britain. It's a 'tense, 'There is the hint of submerged identity; of aspiration and prosperity, rubbing skins with disappointment and neglect; a preoccupation with what is authentic and what is fraudulent; the self and truth only dimly visible … Calling on the deeply rooted psychological power of the storytelling rule of three, the novel is divided into The Book of Dreams, The Book of Knowledge and The Book of Guilt. Three women, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, care for a set of thirteen-year-old triplets in an all-boy's orphanage. There are three main narrative perspectives: Vincent, one of the triplets; the Minister of Loneliness, a government minister in charge of national care institutions known as the Sycamore Homes; and Nancy, a young girl kept in seclusion by fastidious older parents. This attention to pattern also coolly embodies the quest for order and control, the troubling obsession at the core of the fictional investigation.'
The Spinoff
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 30
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Air by John Boyne (Doubleday, $35) The conclusion to Boyne's four-part Elements Series and so far, so good over on Good Reads where 2402 ratings give it an average of 4.47 stars. 2 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) Last year's Booker Prize winner. This year's Booker longlist is due on 29 July. 3 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction winner! My heart is still pumping after that hair-raising ceremony in which Wilkins was delayed until the very last moment when he literally ran onto the stage to make his acceptance speech. Read a day-after-the-night-before interview with Wilkins right here on The Spinoff. 4 Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (Penguin Random House, $65) The people love Macfarlane and his nature writing. 5 M urriyang: Song of Time by Stan Grant (Simon and Schuster, $47) Remember when Stan Grant took the stage at Auckland Writers Festival's gala night and was simply outstanding? Grant is an indigenous Australian writer and journalist and an astonishing, moving storyteller. 6 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin, $38) 'Reading it was just like being back in Auckland, growing up on the streets of Grey Lynn and hoping you might be able to scab some money off your mates and hit up the 562 Takeaway (made famous by appearing on the cover of Hoey's poetry collection 'I Thought We'd Be Famous'). OK, yeah, Hoey and I grew up in Auckland a few decades apart, but reading this felt like looking back on a childhood diary that myself or any one of my friends could have written.' Read more of The Spinoff's Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Claire Mabey's thoughts on this propulsive new novel, here. 7 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) One of the bestselling books of 2024 looks to do the same this 2025. 8 Girl On Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Woman Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert (John Murray, $40) Here's the publisher's explanation: 'What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement's power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the energy of third-wave and 'riot grrrl' feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Mining the darker side of nostalgia, Gilbert trains her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. What she recounts is harrowing, from the leering gaze of the paparazzi to the gleeful cruelty of early reality TV and a burgeoning internet culture vicious toward women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren't. Gilbert tracks many of the period's dominant themes back to the rise of internet porn, which gained widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness. The result is a devastating portrait of a time when a distinctly American blend of excess, materialism, and power worship collided with the culture's reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents. Amid a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, Girl on Girl is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and continues to shape our world today.' 9 Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art by Deidre Brown & Ngarino Ellis with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Auckland University Press, $100) Winner of the Bookhub Award for Illustrated Nonfiction at this year's Ockham New Zealand Book Awards! Read about how the writers approached this ground-breaking book, here. 10 Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth (HarperCollins, $35) 'On the first morning of their holiday together in a remote part of Scotland, 42-year-old Sarah convinces her younger sister, Juliette, to clamber on to the roof of their mobile home for a better phone signal,' writes Shahidha Bari on The Guardian. 'Juliette has three layers of tinfoil wrapped around her limbs and a tinfoil cone hat plonked on her head before she clocks that she's fallen for a prank. It's a pleasing bit of sibling slapstick in Slags, the new novel from Emma Jane Unsworth about desire, dissatisfaction and the ferocious loyalty of sisters. And sisterhood, as Unsworth writes it here, is an unbreakable connection for which no prank antenna is needed.' WELLINGTON 1 Slowing the Sun | Essays by Nadine Hura (Bridget Williams Books, $40) Spinoff readers may well be familiar with Nadine Hura's insightful essays. This is an outstanding collection, a long time in the making. Here's what the publisher says: 'In the midst of grief, Hura works through science, pūrākau, poetry and back again. Seeking to understand climate change in relation to whenua and people, she asks: how should we respond to what has been lost? Her many-sided essays explore environmental degradation, social disconnection and Indigenous reclamation, insisting that any meaningful response must be grounded in Te Tiriti and anti-colonialism.' 2 This Compulsion In Us by Tina Makereti (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $40) What a week for Aotearoa books! Tina Makereti's long-awaited collection of nonfiction is exquisite. Read an excerpt from This Compulsion In Us on The Spinoff, here. 3 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The Auckland Writers Festival's bestselling book and the first in New Zealand to reach 1000 sales in 2025 (are you surprised by that number?). It's a stonkingly good tale about an alternate England of the 1970s. Sinister, thought-provoking and gripping. Read books editor Claire Mabey's review right here. 5 Wonderland by Tracy Farr (Cuba Press, $38) Tracy Farr fans rejoice! We've another compelling novel from the author of The Lives and Loves of Lena Gaunt, and The Hope Fault. Here's the blurb for Wonderland: 'Te Motu Kairangi Miramar Peninsula, Wellington 1912. Doctor Matti Loverock spends her days and nights bringing babies into the world, which means her daughters – seven-year-old triplets Ada, Oona and Hanna – have grown up at Wonderland, the once-thriving amusement park owned by their father, Charlie. Then a grieving woman arrives to stay from the other side of the world, in pain and incognito, fleeing scandal. She ignites the triplets' curiosity and brings work for Matti, diverting them all from what is really happening at Wonderland. In a bold reimagining, Marie Curie – famous for her work on radioactivity – comes to Aotearoa and discovers both solace and wonder.' 6 Tackling the Hens by Mary McCallum (Cuba Press, $25) Local hero Mary McCallum's latest poetry book tackles hens … 'Hens can be fun visitors, when they gossip and sunbathe and pop inside for a chat, but they can outstay their welcome and tackling them to send them home isn't easy,' reads the charming blurb. 'They aren't the only creatures in the pages of this book— there's Ursula the golden-eyed cat, a leporine emperor, singing mice and all the swallows! Then there are the people who interact with them: an entomologist in love with the spiders he observes, a builder who releases a trapped mouse, a woman who attracts bees as a flower does—and Mary and the hens, of course.' 7 The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape, $38) Vuong is unstoppable. This latest work is already a TikTok sensation and massive bestseller. Here's the blurb: 'One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.'
