The female experience and the talisman of food
Elizabeth Smither’s contribution to the ecosystem of New Zealand literature is immense — award-winning poetry, six novels, six short story collections, as well as memoirs. Her new story collection, The Piano Girls, is dense with linked melodies and recurring motifs. Each story is composed with the gentle touch and elegance of an assured writer.
The book is brimming with tales — 20 stories — and relationships, both familial and romantic. In the title story, three daughters commemorate their late mother by playing a piano recital on her birthday each year. The role of mother is further explored in the stories Gravy and Toothpaste, and Smither worries at the burdens and intricacies of the maternal, exposing hard truths.
Fathers often show their face in Smither’s stories only to dole out money. In both Money and The Hotel, fathers give loans along with unwelcome advice, although one character finds the lesson learned from her father — “A fool and his money are soon parted” — continues to influence her long after his death.
In The Hotel, Rosie is taken by her boyfriend to a sumptuous and expensive lodge near the mountains. She’s wined and dined and although she’s aware something significant will occur on the trip, she understands it’ll only happen on a timeline of his choosing. At no point in the story does Rosie have autonomy over her destiny — and when the blow is dealt, it’s done with Smither’s classic pianissimo gentleness. Love, as Amy Winehouse once sang, is sometimes a losing game.
A highlight of the collection is the cleverly layered Baking Night. Antonia awaits the arrival of her most recent beau, worried about his expectations: she isn’t ready to let this man into her bed. So she creates an elaborate lie in which scones, biscuits and a cake must be baked that night. Rather than tell him to leave, Antonia “manages” him. There’s a lot of discussion about this issue today — the work women do to be submissive, attempting to dull a man’s anger and disappointment and hopefully prevent violence. While the tactic in the story is both comedic and memorable, it also conveys a nauseating sense of unease.
The stories examine the ways in which we are performing for others, and the ways in which we watch others perform. In Gravy, Melissa’s married to an artist and playing at “domestic housewife”, hiding her deficiencies by having her mother deliver the perfect gravy to satisfy his appetite. Penelope, in the story Tummies In, Tails Tucked Under, is performing too: she’s a ballerina, observed constantly. Jacqueline in Ten Conductors analyses and dissects the performances of both the musicians in the orchestra and the conductors themselves, with their “little dances that could fit on to the podium”.
Smither’s restrained and elegant prose delights in the lives of women. While a male point of view is included, this is largely a book about the female experience. Domestic scenes are given due weight and thought. The preparation of food (salads, pies, casseroles) becomes a talismanic force. As the title suggests, music is ever-present in the stories, in particular classical music, for it’s the soundtrack to their emotional lives. The Piano Girls is a quiet book, full of resonance and thoughtful ideas, a collection to be savoured.
• Josie Shapiro is a writer from Auckland. Her short fiction has been published in takahe, Newsroom, The Three Lamps and Ko Aotearoa Tatou/we are New Zealand (OUP, 2020). A longer version of this review will appear on anzliterature.com.