Kiwi pop fiction that sings
Few women can be as loaded down with dramatic problems as Claire Bowerman, the protagonist of Sue Younger’s debut novel Days Are Like Grass.
Claire’s work is stressful enough. As a pediatric surgeon, she tries to patch up damaged children in the Starship part of Auckland Hospital. Often enough, the children are victims of child abuse.
But there are also cultural problems.
How can she deal with a Pasifika couple who believe they can avoid surgery and have their child’s cancerous tumour cured by a faith healer?
If Claire presses them too hard to stick with conventional medicine, she will be accused of cultural insensitivity. The media are always waiting to beat up such stories.
Added to Claire’s problems is the notoriety of her name. Her father may or may not have been a murderer and rapist in a shocking case from years previously.
Just to be called Bowerman brings guilt-by-association upon her.
But maybe most stressful is her domestic situation.
Her partner is a very genial Israeli guy, Yossi, who has been happy to come to New Zealand with her and get away from the tensions of his home country.
But Claire also has a sharp and aware 15-year-old daughter, Roimata, from an earlier liaison with a Maori guy, Brent Te Hira.
Now that she’s back in Auckland, Brent’s relatives want to introduce the girl to her whanau and perhaps take her under their wing.
So how will this affect Claire’s relationship with Yossi?
And will Roimata become alienated from them?
And will Claire ever shake off the notoriety of her family name?
And will her skills as a surgeon be compromised by the need for cultural sensitivity?
You see how loaded with dramatic material Days Are Like Grass is?
That’s because it’s essentially a very good yarn.
It moves smoothly and briskly as a narrative. It is written throughout in the present tense. Much of it progresses by dialogue.
It has the very attractive feature of clear and vivid descriptions of Auckland. In fact it reads very much like something that could very easily be turned into a movie.
There has recently been some controversy over how few New Zealanders seem to read New Zealand fiction. Some angry commentators have weighed in to say that highbrow fiction is given too much coverage by reviewers at the expense of more popular work.
Okay then – here is a New Zealand novel, which should unreservedly appeal to a very large audience. It does have its downside. Maybe a too glib working to a happy ending. Maybe an idealised, rather stereotypical, view of the good things that can be wrought by a visit to a girl’s ancestral turangawaewae.
Even so, a page turner and a good one.