alysontheblog

Catherine Robertson published Gabriel’s Bay in 2018 and What you wish for takes us back to the New Zealand coastal town, which is even more geographically unfettered this time – the story of the locals being bracketed not by that of a dog, but by that of a local moose!

As with Gabriel’s Bay, this novel is full of interweaving stories, some of them stories of the characters we got to know in the first novel, some of those who were then hovering in the wings.  For example, solo mum Sydney is back front and centre, now firmly in a relationship with Kerry the UK import. Kerry’s parents, Bronagh and Douglas make an entrance, staying with local farmer Vic, in a B&B his wife set up before leaving him for a bloke in Aus.  There are a group of environmentalists camped on his land too, who are infiltrated by a dodgy character called Loko, who Mac and Jacko’s daughter, Emma, has trailed back to Gabriel’s Bay.    Dr Love is now retired but still active in the town, and he has been replaced by the delightful Dr Ashwin Ghadavi (Ash), who is smitten with Emma, who has decided to wade in to help the beautiful Devon get a girlfriend … well you get the idea … lots of characters, lots of storylines, all intertwined.  There is a helpful cast list at the beginning if you get lost.

Amongst the kindness, joviality and the humour (I particularly liked the list of trendy baby clothes) there is some solid social commentary.  The tension between environmentalists and traditional farming practices (“How could Vic blame him for lamenting that bare paddocks had usurped lush native bush?”), between small business and big business, between inherited prejudices and gender identity, between those who unintentionally fall pregnant and those desolate with unwanted childlessness, about the battles you must fight if you haven’t got much money, and about the vulnerability of children – little Madison isn’t back from Gabriel’s Bay but we get to know her Christmas buddy, Reuben: “And children were the most vulnerable of all.”

All the characters, apart from Loko who we don’t really get to know, are complicated and contradictory, and most evolve through the story, they are willing to learn, either from wise elders or from their own mistakes.  What you wish for is another slice of Gabriel’s Bay life, funny, sad and dynamic.  It deals with the social problems New Zealand is facing, including how easy it is to get swept along with a crowd you may disagree with but are nervous of publicly contradicting.  You could read this as a standalone novel, but I was glad I had read Gabriel’s Bay first.  And hopefully we will get to return another day!

Covering spring, summer and autumn of 2001-2012, various voices from an extended New Zealand family talk us through their family dynamics, their crises, their obsessions and their aspirations.

Hamilton, NZ – Elena is expecting her first baby with her ethics lecturer partner, Malcolm.  Elena is obsessed with healthy eating and writes a food blog. Malcolm is feeling a little neglected and spends a lot of time on Facebook.  Elena’s mum, Valerie, is a GP, a Christian and divorced from Caleb, who lives up North and watches a lot of sport on TV.  Michael, Elena’s brother, is a surfer, a varsity student and is beginning to explore his Māori heritage, helped by Gayle, his grandma. Evie is Michael’s on again off again girlfriend, a vegan and angry animal rights campaigner.  John is Valerie’s younger son and angry full stop – feeling neglected and hard done by, especially by his younger sister, Rosa.  Rosa is eight year’s old and having a hard time at school and at home.

If you think you might get lost with all these different characters, you won’t;   Ritchie has given them all different voices, opinions and backgrounds.  Fishing for Māui is a study in identity – how we are constantly trying to make a claim about who we are through our behaviour, food preferences, who we associate with … The novel also touches on the problems of those from cultural backgrounds where a family has drifted (or been pushed) from those cultural roots – where world views have to be learned rather than absorbed.

Fishing for Māui has a lot to say about our need for attention, and the perils of becoming too self-absorbed in our own passions and interest to give care and attention to those closest to us – all of Valerie’s children feel neglected, and all feel resentment towards someone else for getting all the attention.  Also mentioned is the role of spiritual belief; on the one hand giving us something other people might be failing to give, and on the other providing crucial information about our identity and where we have come from.

Another theme is the medicalisation of various aspects of our lives: pregnancy, mental instability, the handling of early cancer avoidance treatments and the management of eating disorders.  If this all sounds over-whelming, it isn’t.  The book flows effortlessly through the seasons, characters develop and relationships change.  There is a slight tendency to preach about the invasive treatment of early stage cervical abnormalities, but apart from that there is a lightness of touch which allows the characters to shine through.  The book is a “slice of life”; things are not neatly resolved in the end – there are various ways the stories of these interesting characters might play out – which is one of the many things I liked about this book – another one being the lovely telling of the Māui hero stories which are scattered throughout.

Lale was a bit of a lad in Slovakia, fond of women and fine clothes: “Always dress to impress”, but when he ends up in Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1942 he must use all his charm and cunning to survive – and he does, he does well, and then he falls in love …

The tattooist of Auschwitz started out as a screenplay before being ‘kickstarted’ into a debut novel.  It is very simply written and it is not the writing that keeps you engaged – it is the incredible true story of Lale and Gita, the young woman he falls in love with, and the other inmates of the camp – Jews, Romani, Poles – all those people whose “futures have been derailed and there will be no getting back on the same track.”

Morris creates a world within the camps that has all the usual rivalries and kindnesses to be found when groups of people live together; the dislike of new comers, the suspicion of those who appear better off than you, but also the incredible generosity that people are capable of, both from those held in the camps and from those civilians who visit to do their work.  There are also fleeting kindnesses from the guards, but very fleeting, their behaviour unfortunately typical when people are given free reign to hate and vilify another section of humanity.

Lale is given the job of tattooing the numbers onto new arrival’s forearms, first as an assistant and then as the official Tätowierer for the camps.  And that raises all sorts of moral questions for Lale – is he a collaborator?  Is he complicit in taking away people’s identities?  If he doesn’t do it someone else will – someone maybe not so gentle, someone who won’t use his position to help others?  And being the Tätowierer’s assistant is how he first saw Gita, where he first got his absolute determination to make sure they both survive.

Questions about what the right thing is to do when you are in the most surreal of circumstances pepper the novel: another young woman, Cilka, becomes the sexual plaything of the Senior Commandant of Birkenau, we learn later she was charged with being a Nazi conspirator and sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labour in Siberia.  Jakub is required to torture his fellow Jews, we don’t hear of his fate.  The ‘why didn’t the Jews rise up and overthrow their captors’ question is briefly dealt with: “we have fists, they have rifles – who do you think is going to win that fight?”

Lale comes to live by the motto “To save one is to save the world”, and in the three years he is held he does what he can for those around him, and especially for Gita.  It is a remarkable story, at the end of the book there are sections on Morris’ research and on Lale and Gita, including photographs.  The tattooist of Auschwitz is a timely read given the Trump administration’s rumblings about ‘Muslims’, the current apparently wholesale incarceration of Uighur Muslims in China, and the treatment of Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the ongoing insanity of punishing people for who they are not what they have done.