New Kiwi nonfiction from Alistair Paterson, Rod Smith and Kelly Dennett
Three histories serve up a family memoir, a homage to a dark ale and a murder mystery.
Ignore the portentous title and surreal cover. Focus, instead, on the contents of Alistair Paterson’s family memoir PASSANT: A Journey to Elsewhere (Austin
Macauley Publishers, $17.95). “The past is always with us,” Paterson observes in his rich and evocative account of a pre-war Nelson childhood.
The written word has fuelled his long career as a poet, writer, editor and critic. Now in later life, he returns, as many writers do, to his childhood and the personalities who inhabited it. His two families – the Whites and the Patersons – occupy centre stage, filling it with half-remembered events, shadowy secrets and whispered answers. Even as a child, Paterson was aware of the strong emotional undercurrents flowing beneath the surface – the unspoken mystery of his paternal grandfather’s death, a controlling grandmother and his parents’ strangely detached relationship. It’s a beautifully written book by an author inspired by the siren whispers of a beguiling past.
Rod Smith serves up a large glass of the dark stuff in GUINNESS DOWN UNDER (Eyeglass Press, $49.99). An estimated nine million glasses of Guinness are drunk every day around the globe, so it seems that the velvety brew – first concocted 250 years ago in Dublin – has not lost its appeal. Bottles first appeared in New Zealand and Australia in the middle of the 19th century, launching a connection that still flows today. If the history of the drink is interesting, the story of the family who started it all (“brewers, bankers and clergymen”) is absorbing. Smith’s wife is a member of a many-branched family tree planted by a young 18th-century Irishman determined to make his way in the world with a recipe for a unique porter ale. What followed is history – but as Smith shows, a far-from-ordinary family saga. A highly entertaining read enhanced by well-selected illustrations. Cheers.
The story of Jane Furlong’s
brief 17-year life ended with her abduction, murder and burial in an anonymous grave in 1993. The sex worker left behind a family and the lingering mystery of who abducted her from Auckland’s Karangahape Rd.
The questions were partially answered 19 years later with the discovery of her remains. Kelly Dennett’s THE SHORT LIFE AND MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JANE FURLONG (Awa Press, $42) reveals something of Furlong’s personality and background, the search for her and the continuing debate about her murderer’s identity. It’s a challenging subject for a first book, but Dennett handles it with maturity and sensitivity, avoiding turning out a lurid penny dreadful. Her background as a crime reporter provided her with valuable contacts on both sides of the law: people able to give insight into the life and death of a vulnerable young woman.