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The Kindness of Strangers
A memoir - with recipes - from a well-loved writer with a unique and quirky take on life. Looking back over her varied life in a range of roles, including daughter, wife, mother, journalist and novelist, Shonagh Koea has collected a store of vivid memories that often centre on food. In these moving vignettes, she recalls her past, giving us a privileged insight into her life and into a New Zealand that no longer exists, along with delicious recipes and a strong sense of the gentle yet significant encounters we have with strangers and acquaintances. Much more than a straightforward memoir, this book is an astute and sometimes wry observation of social interaction, of New Zealand's recent history and of the place that food has in our everyday lives. It is also the intriguing story of a unique writer, of her life, her thoughts and her work.
Rain
Shonagh Koea exhibits her wonderful ability to combine the wry with the poignant in this finely observed short story. When asked which was her daughter, Alyssum's mother always used to say, 'The ugly one.' Alyssum has since made a life for herself, away from her old home. But her mother is now in hospital, suffering from dementia. Can Alyssum reach through the pain of the past or will her mother have the last word? Funny, touching, painful, this is quintessential Koea territory.
The Best of Shonagh Koea's Short Stories
Blackly humorous yet poignant and multi-levelled, finely crafted and thoroughly entertaining, this short-story collection is from a unique writer with a rare and distinctive talent. 'Reading Shonagh Koea's stories . . . is like sampling a box of good, rich chocolates. Read (or eat) too many at once and there's a risk of sensual overload; restrict yourself to one or two, and you miss the pleasure of indulgence, and the subtle distinction of each offering.' So a reviewer in New Zealand Books summed up what another called Shonagh Koea's 'always stylish and scrupulously crafted' writing. Her short stories have been widely admired for their dexterity with language, startingly original imagery, a ...
Staying Home and Being Rotten
This novel is a compelling, black comedy of manners and relationships. When the parcel first reaches Rosalind's mail box she is unable to take it out or even to contemplate opening it. It throws her into a series of painful recollections and comic-tragic events, which gradually reveal the nature of the unfortunate experience she has undergone, and eventually leads to an unexpected and, for the reader, superbly satisfying resolution of her pain and distress. The novel combines the robust good humour of Henry Fielding, with the sensitivities of Jane Austen and the satirical playfulness of Evelyn Waugh. This delightful combination produces a black comedy of manners, which, once taken up, can't be put down. 'This is not merely a good book, but a work of brilliance. It establishes Shonagh Koea as a leading New Zealand novelist and a writer of international significance.' - Alistair Paterson
The Lonely Margins of the Sea
Witty and ironic, this novel follows an intriguing return to the family home on the lonely margins of the sea. Stephanie was always the outsider - never allowed to play with the china dolls on the staircase landing, always on the edge of family events, shut out of the important secrets. Now, after many years, she returns to the family house, on the lonely margins of the sea, to care for her cousin Louise. But now it is her immediate past, too, that haunts her - the time she has spent locked away for a crime she dare not recall. With consummate skill, insight and poignancy, Shonagh Koea weaves her magic once again in this memorable novel.
Landscape with Solitary Figure
A novel about the transporting power of the imagination, about overcoming violence, and about the beauty and resilience of a solitary life. Ellis has come to appreciate her solitary life, in her bungalow not far from the sea. As she looks from her window, she begins to find a way to confront and yet distance the past. Gradually, she edges towards and away from the time she moved to another town, the one she subsequently fled from. It was in this town that she met the man who invited her to his dinner parties and who took particular interest in knowing her biggest fear. In revealing what he did to her, Ellis also describes how she survived . . . Written in Shonagh Koea's distinctive style, this compelling novel is at times darkly humorous but also deeply unsettling.
Yet Another Ghastly Christmas
Witty and poignant, wicked and touching, another entertaining novel from popular writer Shonagh Koea. As Christmas approaches, Evelyn's 'friends' the Clarks become more and more anxious about where she is going to spend Christmas, or more precisely with whom. They push forward a worrying assortment of candidates in an effort to ensure it's not with them. Evelyn would rather they just left her alone to let her get on with tending her sparse garden and reading her novel about the soldier who killed himself. His fate starts to be a tempting option to the ceaseless phone calls from Jennifer Clark badgering her to find someone. As yet another Christmas draws near, showing all the signs of being ghastly, what can Evelyn do?
Sing to Me, Dreamer
A quirky, much-loved novel about a return home, a past love affair and an elephant. "It is many years since I turned the pages of the little book I wrote for the holy man, and the ivory covers creak as I open on the story of how I went to India . . . As my voice ascends, thin as the song of a lark, I see again the black eyes of the holy man, irises flecked with gold as he hands me the pen and paper. 'Oh sing to me, dreamer,' he said, and I began to write." Back home as she sorts out her deceased Mother's estate, Margaret Harris reflects on her time in India as mistress to a Maharajah. But there are many things that she has to confront in the present - her bullying lawyer, the aggressive neighbour, and the spectre of her failed relationship with her mother.
Time for a Killing
The celebrated author of gentle despair and stylish horror takes a picaresque and light-hearted tilt at prostitution, the Mafia, real estate and the supernatural in this entertaining urban fairytale. Lydia, a gorgeous, blonde of uncertain age, has for several years been the chief entertainer at the Cote d'Azur, a high-class brothel of splendid architecture and decoration. Her sad and disorderly history is explored here in this ironical and richly adverbial novel of the mores and manners of the twenty-first century. The glittering cast of characters includes the viciously untasteful Kevin Crumlatch and his pathetic wife Moira, who spends much of her time reading New Age inspirational literature while wearing dirty slippers. This tongue-in-cheek novel hovers over the home of a group of disconsolate and eccentric ghosts, all former owners of the house, who are deeply upset by untalented flower arrangements, tasteless furniture, domestic disharmony, dislocated shoulders and lack of sex.
