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Charlie Lowry was fifteen-years-old in the late seventies – full of dreams and fantasies, and concerns about her peeling toenail varnish. She wanted boys to notice her, and they sometimes did, but for her fascination with words – she was always one for the funny pun – they didn’t see her potential for glamorous romance. One night at a party, a boy did notice her – and she thought she had achieved her dream. But instead, she found herself in a situation that could only be resolved by a quick trip to Sydney, or by her ‘going up North for a while’.

Many years later Charlie is living in Wellington with her grandson, Tommy. She has given up on her wish to study and apply her flair for linguistics, due to experiencing bouts of vocal disfunction. She teaches five-year-olds at a local school. The realisation that Tommy has formed a relationship with a fellow maths student at university, and the unexpected return of her son, Jim, leads Charlie to reassess her life. She considers what information she has shared with her son and grandson, and whether it is time to reveal more. And also whether it is time to be honest with herself about her traumatic past.

If all this sounds a bit heavy going, it isn’t – Loop tracks is honest, compassionate, and compellingly written. It look at generational relationships. It considers what power the State has to interfere in an individual’s life decisions – whether those be decisions a woman makes about her body, or about the agency of some to choose to end their own lives. It considers what right males have to put young girls into situations they have no ability to manage – we see the power to do so developing in the five-year-old bullies in Charlie’s class. And Loop tracks eventually confronts the State’s power to curtail freedoms to protect citizens from a deadly virus, and the obligation of individuals to comply. It highlights the decisions, sometimes immediate, spontaneous, and unconsidered, that send lives on paths that might otherwise have been avoided or missed.

In one section of the book, Charlie goes back to accompany her younger self as her mother takes her to the doctor, her mother suspecting Charlie is pregnant, Charlie thinking that is ridiculous. The reader confronts the absolute naivety of the young Charlie, how impossible for her to relevantly answer her father’s plea: “What were you thinking, Charlie?” Charlie finds herself on a flight bound for Sydney, there being few options for safe abortion in Aotearoa in 1978. Her parents have fallen into debt to fund the trip – her mother leaves the airport jealous of her daughter’s chance of an overseas flight. The reason Charlie makes her decision to leave the plane on the tarmac is pathetic, as in full of pathos – and it is a decision with life-long consequences.

Jim is a monster in many ways, he is a drug peddlar, a manipulator, he carries memories of the bodies of dead young women. Jim is a reason for Charlie to regret her decision to get off the plane. Jim’s son Tommy – abandoned by Jim as a child – is a reason for her to celebrate that same decision. Tommy is beautiful and a wonder to Charlie. He is a mathematician and “… she’s a words girl. Numbers are not her thing.” Tommy is socially awkward and has no filter to his emotions: “he’s so literal, people find that difficult”. He has sudden bouts of fury: “Rage, reflection, remorse. That’s the order, the only way he can process the hard stuff.” Charlie feels she must protect Tommy until someone else can take over. Despite the sacrifices she has made for him, she knows Tommy has no empathy for her – he is brutally judgemental.

Jenna is Tommy’s friend. Her sister, Suzie, plays Loop Track music. Tommy is entranced by the building repetition of Suzie’s music the way he was, and still is, absorbed by Charlie’s old Spirograph machine. Suzie, who we never meet, also knows Jim – and Jim’s dark shadow grows over Charlie’s family. Charlie’s friend and workmate, Adele, is a moderating element – pointing out to Charlie that she is prone to spying on Tommy and Jenna; that she is still trying to control Tommy’s decisions; that she seems not to be acknowledging the reality of what happened to her in 1978.

The arrival of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown and the Euthanasia Referendum of the same year, pulls the novel into tight focus. Tommy tracks the outbreak, and becomes engrossed in arguments about his responsibilities to protect life at both ends of the life cycle. And his logical un-empathic approach is a challenge to Charlie and her beliefs. The isolation of lockdown (she is both with and apart from Tommy) allows Charlie to become aware that she is lonely, she longs for “the hot rush of human touch”. Lockdown provides yet another set of opportunities for Charlie, and decisions that will either fulfil or deny those opportunities.

Loop tracks is a brutal book in many ways, but it glows with humanity. It suggests the importance of being honest about memory, about beliefs. It emphasises being kind to yourself, but also the importance of thinking beyond yourself when considering the decisions you make and the paths you choose. A very powerful Aotearoa read.                

If you love books about secret societies,  The holy blood and the holy grail–type conspiracies, ancient treasure hunts, von Däniken–adjacent human origin stories, New Age science and history, and grand unified theories of, well, everything … Two truths is the book for you. A woman and her three daughters set out on different quests to find the ‘truth’, all for different reasons, and possibly searching for different truths. They discover a power that could be the salvation or the end of humanity.

Renee had an experience with a strange (but literarily familiar) man as a teenager that changed the course of her life. She dissented from that course eventually, but had to pay a price, and in doing so fulfilled the prediction of the man: that she would have three daughters. Scott, Renee’s husband, has prepared the eldest daughter, Brett, for a life as part of The Order, an elite exclusive cabal. Sara is a social-media-addicted teenager, slightly goth, naturally dismissive and rebellious. And Hadley, the youngest daughter, floats through life with her head full of bible verses and dreams

Sara bumps into Penny, the daughter of a colleague of her father’s, at the colleague’s funeral. Penny, with whom Sara becomes slightly besotted, warns Sara that their fathers had discovered something that had put them in great danger: her father had been murdered and Sara’s father was next. Dismissing the claims, Sara explains that she is being bundled off to New Zealand: “Do they speak English there?” All but Brett, who is estranged from her family, go to the far-off country.

It is in Aotearoa that Scott dies, but not before realising he has been cultivating the wrong daughter. Sara becomes intent on revenging Scott’s death. Hadley, who is brought back from death at the accident that kills her father, loses her ability to speak and her will to live. Renee takes the girls back to their home in Cincinnati, where Sara searches out Penny. Sara and Penny start on a quest to find out about the deaths of their fathers. Hadley meets up with a mysterious man and eventually “She had found the Truth, and in doing so, had lost her religion”. Renee gets involved with Jonas, a beautiful young basketball player. And Brett becomes more and more embroiled in the machinations of The Order: “Silly game or not, she had no other option but to play it.”

To say anything else about who, or what, everyone is; or, how the quests of the four women come together, would be to spoil the plot. It covers so many familiar tropes it is fascinating to read how they are all woven together. There is the power-hungry triumvirate of The Order, the Catholic Church and the “money launderers” – AKA big business tycoons and their political henchmen. The seemingly inevitable development of hierarchies: of beings, of classes, of blood. The spiritual quests of individuals who fall by the way, as they fail to see that their goal is right before their eyes the whole time. The dangers of actions that are taken “for the greater good” …

Chapters are told from the point of view of different characters, which gives the narrative great texture. From the outset you are in a strange but oddly familiar world – Hadley being accompanied by a ghost and an angel, Renee acting on her attraction to Jonas – who is reminiscent of the biblical Nephilim. The use of biblical texts to prove the ancient use of nuclear technology, and the genetic manipulation of humans. Saint Germain still wandering the streets of Paris. And there are the more sinister themes: older men coaching teenaged girls. The head of the secret society using sex to manipulate his followers: “The only answer is to submit.” The casual suggestion of eugenics.

The mistake the two fathers made was in intending to enlighten the uninitiated masses by informing them of what they had discovered. We learn there are those who are living lives that have lasted for millennia. Those who have lived through many lives – some who remember them, some who can be encouraged to remember them, and those who will always be ignorant. These latter are the Masses. There are parties who think “The Masses pose a threat”, and there are parties who think the Masses are our only hope: “This is the world I love, the world I see every day and that most people walk by without noticing. If you do not love what the world is in its simplest form, you will not be able to save it.”

There is whimsy to some of the writing: “The countertop was bright orange and the curtains were yellow and pulled back with a piece of lace. On the wall was a black clock shaped like a cat, with eyes that rolled back and forth with each tick.” However, the themes are dark: the attraction of suicide – Ernest, Renee’s initial awakener in this life, commits suicide; Hadley must be constantly encouraged to focus on life, not death. And insanity is always hovering, as a place to hide – Renee “how easy to blame delusion.”

The two truths of the title refer to an empirical truth and a transcendental truth – and the confusion as to which is the more powerful, the more dangerous. The paradox flows through the text – one of the ‘higher level’ beings is always cooking, gardening, or making things from wood. Humans are cast as both the playthings of the gods, and those some gods love so much they can’t desert them. The story works its way towards a great reunion as the climax – and there is a challenge – which way will be chosen? Power and exclusion, or the realisation of connectedness and opportunity for all?  

I read this book as COP26 is being held in Glasgow. Once again, the world’s leaders are discussing how to address the ecological and climatic disasters the ‘money launderers’ have wrought. It would be good to think when asked the question posed in The two truths – “And do you know what each of us will choose?”, they would choose the better path. Yet as Renee observes of herself and Jonas, they have become aware of so much “Yet we stroll on an autumn evening as if nothing is different”. An interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable read.

Crazy love is about addiction, art, love with no boundaries, and the burden of mental illness. It is sad, beautiful, frustrating, and tantalising. It is about survival and despair and mundanity. It is about Vicky Miller and the destructive love of her life, Billy Cooper. It is semi-autobiographical and totally charming and totally worrying at the same time. It is extraordinarily honest, and a perfect example of how messy life can be.

Vicky had a far-from-ideal upbringing: “Weird to have such a disappointing mother be disappointed in me”. She has a microsecond stint in the army, where she learns to make a tight bed, but doesn’t find Richard Gere (it is the 1980s). A post-abortion infection means she returns to her hometown, Napier. After some dead-end jobs, she washes up in Art Deco ‘Dire Straits’ – a living complex full of the unemployed, partially employed, and dodgily employed, all with no families to fall back on.

Crazy love evokes the 1980s with song lyrics interspersed in the narrative and descriptions of the unique fashions of the time. It is an interesting time in Aotearoa’s political history, but Vicky is only mildly interested in politics – she is too disenfranchised to take much notice. She does write to Robert Muldoon to voice her frustration at only having enough money for one pie a day – she gets a response: $1 for one extra pie. It is a funny/not funny moment but also prefigures the struggles Vicky will have later, with a bureaucracy that, in aiming to help all, struggles to help each. Like many women in a society where social support reinforces female financial dependence on partners, Vicky must put up with a ‘loser-boyfriend’ to survive.

The reply to her letter to Muldoon heralds the unconnected arrival of Billy – and her life is never the same again. Billy is beautiful, “…this punk, he had my attention”. He is a punk, but in a stylish way. He is a high-flyer with big plans. Billy is unpredictable, unreliable, a bit of a grifter, with mercurial moods. He is enticing, and Vicky and Billy get married. Vicky knows that Billy’s successes are mostly mirages. However, initially they do find financial success as a married couple. They have a lovely big house, plenty of money, and two children. They both have the continual need for affirmation, but their financial stability satisfies that.

The reader looks back on this time of success obliquely. Vicky enjoys writing poetry. She raises her children and helps Billy with his business. “Billy and I had big plans over the years. Some succeeded, some didn’t.” Then it all crumbles. Fortunately, the children have left home. Vicky and Billy move to a house with Dawn Raid hideouts under the floorboards and in the roof cavity. Vicky finally admits that the exciting rhythms of Billy’s life: “He’s my yoyo man”, are due to serious mental illness. Vicky is small. She knows she is vulnerable. Due to the many dangerous situations she has been in, she has learned the art of running away. She doesn’t run from Billy.

We pick up the current narrative with Billy living like a wild man outside in the garden, with Vicky inhabiting the house. She finds official help is hard if not impossible to find. She finds out who her friends are – almost all women – the men are afraid of Billy. Billy’s behaviour is manipulative, passive-aggressive, and often pathetic. It makes you wonder if all abusive partners have a serious mental illness! “We are the beautiful-bold. Strong as long as we are together. Billy and I. Only, he has been such an arse lately.” Vicky has always known Billy has viewed her as a wife to look after him while he flourishes. At one point she proves to herself she could kill Billy if she wanted.

Vicky starts writing a novel, it is a long process – she is working on Purgatory, a novel I still think about often even though I read it seven years ago. She is functioning well, while she lies for Billy and complies with his illegal flurries. He is overweight, smelly, yet still strangely attractive. She decides if he commits suicide, so will she. Her children are ciphers for the way she sees herself and Billy. The son is ‘eat-and-run-son’, always leaving and far away yet emotionally closer to her than to Billy. The daughter is ‘surly-girl’, always judging and blaming Vicky. “What if I was to blame for stopping Billy from being the wondrous Billy he used to be?”

“He forgets he’s not the young punk who took on a carload of young dicks sassing him at the burger bar in Napier.” When Vicky decides she is damaging Billy more by covering for him that by asking authorities for help, she provokes a response that illustrates the lack of help for those with mental illness – a ‘riot squad’ arrives. Despite Billy almost avoiding it through his charm, he ends up in an acute mental health unit. They communicate via haiku-like missives. Vicky is alone, grieving for the baby she lost before joining the army, for her beloved dog, for the cat she left behind in ‘Dire Straits.’ She wonders if splitting from Billy would be the best thing for him.

Move to the present: Billy is still Vicky’s “Strange man. Strange, strange man.” He is a conspiracy theorist, but he is taking his medication. During Covid (“a hoax to disguise the fact that there are intergalactic space travellers on earth for negotiations …”), they panic buy wine and tealight candles, not toilet rolls. They have survived, and will continue to survive, as they have the most astounding unconditional love. The reader is left puzzled yet comforted, and at the same time very uneasy, “the perimeter is never secure, really, is it?” A powerful piece of Aotearoa fiction/not fiction.

Jake and Emily were childhood friends and neighbours. Now in his early twenties, Jake returns to Dunedin from Auckland, where he has been studying after failing to get into medical school. Jake will finally start his medical training, which Emily started a few years before. Emily is now in a relationship with a first-year doctor. Jake and Emily have an enduring attraction. The scene is set for a medical romance. However, Jake and Emily share a secret – one that continues to both bind them together and push them apart – the scene is also set for a harrowing novel about the cruelty of fate and the despair of those at its mercy.

Emily escapes her anxieties by sketching. She wants to create a graphic novel called Double helix dragon – with a heroic main character who can face fate without fear. There is internal fate – the fate of genetics, of blood clots and intercranial haemorrhaging, and miscarriages – intertwined with external fate, the fate of flash floods, suicide, and random accidents. Like Emily, Jake has an escape – surfing: “the ocean moving beneath him, like the ebb and flow of his heart, until he felt as if he and the sea were one and the same, no beginning and no end”. Even in a glass of beer Jake sees the scud of foam as “an outgoing tide”.

Double helix has a romance novel arc: a lost letter, constant misunderstandings over suspected infidelities, over secrets kept and revealed – but through this arc are tragedies. Emily has a hard time at med. school, she has panic attacks, she faints in front of a patient, walks out of her viva. She is haunted by the memory of what she had been able to do as a teenager. Jake takes some energy from the same incident; he copes with the insane stress young doctors are put under. He becomes a conscientious and kind practitioner – the kindness extending to decisions made about patients in pain with no hope of recovery. He sometimes crosses the line of impartiality.

The novel has excruciating depictions of family toxicity. Jake’s father abandoned him when he was eight, leaving him with an ill mother. Emily’s father is controlling and manipulative. Her mother is generous and caring, but there is a sharp side to her, as Jake finds out in a show-down. Emily thinks Jake abandoned her when he went to Auckland all those years ago. But Double helix is not a simple tale – there are always at least two sides to every story. At the heart of everything is the Damocles sword hanging over Jake and Emily. “What you don’t know can hurt you. A lot.”

Both Jake and Emily flirt with suicide – Emily in a hot bath “contemplating the thin blue veins beneath her milky skin”. And when Jake is surfing, he knows it would be as easy to surrender to the sea as ride it. Their characterisations are engaging and moving. And there are other great characters – Kylie, a fellow student and then a firm friend. Jake’s Aunt Ngaire, who shows the calm nurturing side of families. Despite Double helix being unflinching in its depictions of Jake and Emily’s journey, it is a hopeful book with buckets of heart, and I loved it. If it has one message, it is probably that voiced by Kylie: “Fuck fate.”

Megan Dunn takes you on a journey – from her first infatuation with Strawberry Shortcake dolls, through her fixations on various other mass-produced toys, later wearing them on clothing as “beacons of burgeoning sexuality”. She attends Elam School of Fine Arts, the Intermedia department, she accrues a whopping student loan and becomes a video artist. She founds an avant-garde gallery in Auckland. She has waitressing jobs, and then is a receptionist/bartender at various massage parlours. She farewells Aotearoa – and then comes back for the heart of the story. Megan Dunn appropriates and edits her own life to create a resonating work of art.

Like the author’s brilliant Tinderbox, Things I learned at art school defies classification. It is a memoir, an essay collection, and a novel. It is full of facts. Facts about the conception and production or various toys, about the making of Splash and other movies, facts about TV themes and popular songs, about famous works of art. It describes what it was like to be a conforming non-conformist at art school. Where she and her cohort were unoriginally intent on deconstructing (ripping off) the originality of others to give the finger to the establishment. To be fair they were living in a time where a model of a balloon artist’s dog could sell at auction for US$58 million.

The book has a beginning, two middles, and an end. Many essays are structured into a narrative with characters. Her character lives through various guises, she is Alice in Wonderland, a massage parlour logo, Patricia Arquette, a mermaid. The narrator writes in the rhythms of the Jabberwocky, in the style of Genesis. Growing up she is bullied, and she has a sad view of the desires of ‘old’ people. Later she has fluctuating weight. She is hyper-impressionable to certain movies and authors. She is insecure, realising at best as an artist she is someone else’s “leap of faith”. She recognises public self-harm might not be an artistic statement but rather an expression of private self-hate. She breaks down during a psychosynthesis course, and she’s never been able to “feign affection” for herself.

Megan the character grows up with wisdom posters: Desiderata, The Serenity Prayer. She lives by appropriated catch phrases: “Are we having fun yet?”, “You’ll smurf what to do when the time comes, Smurfette”. “Everything retro can be brought back, thinner the second time around.” She has the required snobbery for art school: “art like so much else in our society has its hierarchy” and her cohort thought the mainstream was “beneath us, intellectually and emotionally”. The bubble of creating art works purely from appropriating the works of other artists, sometimes themselves appropriated, finally pops. The narrator becomes a reviewer and essayist. Her father describes an early piece as “a bit of a word soup” – “I’ve been making it ever since”.

After her time working in massage parlours, the author packs up for London. Saying goodbye to the beginning and two middles. And then there’s the end. Things I learned at art school says much about art, and true works of art are found adorning hospital walls, created by people in memory of their dead. She spends time with her mother, and the book falls into perspective. Her mother, who was always there when she needed her, despite her daughter ignoring her, or even disparaging her. Her mother sent the author a poem when she finally left home: “One / Lonely / Toothbrush”.

“Art is about everything surplus to requirements – that’s what makes it so essential”, a line that reminded me of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa: “there will always be those that say that art is excess and surplus to existence … Yet surely what makes humans human is always this excess and this surplus we create”. Things I learned at art school is wonderfully created surplus. I admit to being one of those thinking this was going to be Dunn’s ‘mermaid novel’, and quickly found it wasn’t. But in a way it is – with the author describing the emerging and submerging of artists, events, lives. I absolutely loved this book: “I’m drawing a picture from life. See?”