Treasure & trauma

Stewart Island is host to a playful novel about troubled people.

by REBECCA STYLES

A RUNNER’S GUIDE TO RAKIURA: A NOVEL, by Jessica Howland Kany (Quentin Wilson, $37.50) Maudie has travelled from Manhattan to Rakiura/Stewart Island to run and write about the local trails. But if you’re thinking that this might be a “simple city girl ends up in the sticks” story, you’d be mistaken. Instead of lacing up her trainers, Maudie soon begins a treasure hunt that revolves around a large metal box that Rakiura local Tuku is rumoured to have brought back from World War II. What’s in the box, where he buried it before he died, and what it can reveal about the past – along with Maudie’s scarred face and her penchant for booze and dope – result in an ambitious debut about intergenerational trauma. Once the treasure hunt starts proper, the narrative…

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New Zealand Listener (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 51, 2022

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