Preservation
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Paddy’s Puzzle
An internationally acclaimed novel, the Kirkus Reviews wrote, ‘Shrewdly balanced between earthy tenderness and the dreadful trauma of disillusionment: a grave yet limber narrative-and a very welcome import.’
In a strange old building referred to as Paddy’s Puzzle, Clara Bentley endures the fears of wartime and awaits the arrival of her lover, Ambrose. He’s an American Marine. And he’s black. Having grown up in suburban Hamilton, her move to Auckland marks an escape from the dreariness and restrictions of her childhood. In this building, full of an odd assortment of people, she waits, not just for Ambrose, but for the air-raid siren, for the culmination of her illness and for the sister to whom she dreads having to explain her new life in the Puzzle.
Ricochet Baby
A moving novel, with intelligent and compassionate insight into post-natal depression and the complexities of relationships.
‘When Roberta falls pregnant her whole family is filled with joy.’
Fallen is not exactly how Roberta would describe it, for she and Paul have planned the baby and it has been conceived at exactly the time that they chose. But the birth itself is not as anyone chooses and the circles that radiate from this crisis affect everyone involved and change Roberta’s life, in particular, for ever.
Moving & perceptive, full of intelligence and compassionate insights into the complexities of human relationships, this is a fine novel from one of New Zealand’s best writers.
‘In her craft of her storytelling and in her compassionate gutsy tough expression of female experience, she is the best we have.’ – New Zealand Listener
The Book of Secrets
A classic, prize-winning novel about an epic migration and a lone woman haunted by the past in frontier Waipu.
In the 1850s, a group of settlers established a community at Waipu in the northern part of New Zealand. They were led there by a stern preacher, Norman McLeod. The community had followed him from Scotland in 1817 to found a settlement in Nova Scotia, then subsequently to New Zealand via Australia.
Their incredible journeys actually happened, and in this winner of the New Zealand Book Awards, Fiona Kidman breathes life and contemporary relevance into the facts by creating a remarkable fictional story of three women entangled in the migrations - Isabella, her daughter Annie and granddaughter Maria.
McLeod’s harsh leadership meant that anyone who ran counter to him had to live a life of secrets. The ‘secrets’ encapsulated the spirit of these women in their varied reactions to McLeod’s strict edicts and connect the past to the present and future.
The Trouble With Fire
A beautiful collection of stories by a pre-eminent writer, shortlisted for major awards.
Fiona Kidman has a genius for peeling back the lives of ordinary people to reveal their hidden passions and complexities. In this brilliant new collection, she explores — with her customary subtlety and insight — how we are all touched and sometimes scarred by the flames of emotion, whether it be the impossible love of a pregnant woman for a married man, grief for a dead baby or loss of a young woman in mysterious circumstances. Ranging in time from the colonial period to the present day, these stories by one of New Zealand’s foremost writers are beautifully crafted, intriguing and evocative.
True Stars
Who is trying to scare Rose? This gripping novel is a vivid portrayal of New Zealand in the 1980s.
Rose Kendall is alone. She is isolated from her children, her friends, and her political ideals, and there is someone trying to scare her - she doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know who.
True Stars shows the tensions and divisions in 1980s New Zealand, which were echoed both on a national level and in family relationships, which were crystallised by the 1981 Springbok Tour, and which gnaw at differences in race, gender, class — and politics. It is a savage and often humorous novel set during the last months of the Lange Government.
‘With True Stars, Fiona Kidman has become the foremost chronicler of our times.’ – Roger Hall, The Dominion
At the End of Darwin Road: A Memoir
An evocative memoir about the emergence of a pre-eminent writer in a changing world.
‘What I have to tell is largely a personal narrative about how I came to inhabit a fictional world’
This absorbing memoir explores the first half of writer Fiona Kidman’s life, notably in Kerikeri amid the ‘sharp citric scent of orange groves, bright heat and … the shadow of Asia’ — at the end of Darwin Road. From the distance of France, where Kidman spent time as the Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, she reconsiders the past, weaving personal reflection and experience with the history of the places where she lived, particularly the fascinating northern settlements of Kerikeri and Waipu, and further south the cities of Rotorua and Wellington.
Her story crosses paths with those of numerous different New Zealanders, from the Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana, to descendants of the migration from Scotland led by a charismatic Presbyterian minister, to other writers and significant friends. We learn of Kidman’s struggles to establish herself as a writer and to become part of different communities, and how each worked their way into her fiction.
At the End of Darwin Road is a vivid memoir of place and family, and of becoming a writer: ‘I was certain that … I would continue to write, if possible, every day of my life.’
Beside the Dark Pool
An insightful sequel to the successful At the End of Darwin Road.
In her first acclaimed volume of memoir, Fiona Kidman described her background and childhood, evoking the places she lived in and the people she knew. It finished with the publication of her first, hugely successful novel.
In this sequel, she explores further the influences that shaped her subsequent books, her championing of New Zealand writing and writers and the significant people she has met along the way. There are political protests, controversial stands, family quests and journeys overseas — to Europe, North America and the East — journeys that marked her hard-won independence.
Beautifully written and thought-provoking, this is an important record of the last twenty-five years.
About the author
Fiona Kidman
‘We cannot talk about writing in New Zealand without acknowledging her … Kidman’s accessible prose and the way she shows (mainly) women grappling to escape from restricting social pressures has guaranteed her a permanent place in our fiction.’ — New Zealand Books
Fiona Kidman has worked as a librarian, creative writing teacher, radio producer and critic, but primarily as a writer. She has published over 20 books, including novels, poetry, non-fiction and a play. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, her most recent novel The Captive Wife being runner up in the 2006 Montana Book Awards Deutz Medal for Fiction. She was created a Dame (DNZM) in 1998 in recognition of her contribution to literature and more recently a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.
‘In her craft and her storytelling and in her compassionate gutsy tough expression of female experience, she is the best we have’ — The New Zealand Listener
Copyright
A RANDOM HOUSE EBOOK published by Random House New Zealand
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand
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First published 2013
© 2011, 2013 Fiona Kidman
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 86979 955 7
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