NEW WRITING FROM VICTORIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

The House Guest
BARBARA ANDERSON
‘Three in a row and not a man in sight. Funny isn’t it? Four kids and not a father
between them, if you count Emmie.’ Robin Dromgoole, the only son of a widowed
mother, learns to cook with Emmeline who lives next door. But Lisa on the other side,
whom he minded when she was a baby, is the girl he marries.
Barbara Anderson’s new novel spans the lives of three childhood friends, and
interweaves their stories with a fascinating tale of literary detection. The book brims
with her wry humour, and with her extraordinary gift for extracting the most telling
human details from everyday conversations and ordinary life. Anderson’s prose is
simply dazzling: she writes from the heart and shoots from the hip. Sept $24.95

Water, Leaves, Stones
DINAH HAWKEN
Dinah Hawken’s new collection develops themes found in It has no sound and is blue
and Small Stories of Devotion. ‘Small Stories of Devotion is a beautiful and significant
book. It is bound to make a difference.’ —Bernadette Hall, Dominion Oct $19.95

Go Round Power Please
JAMES BROWN

An exciting debut collection from a leading young poet. These poems cover a wide
range, from love lyric to dramatic monologue to found poem; all are distinguished by
attention to poetic form and inventive and subversive use of language.
James Brown was born in 1966 and lives in Wellington. His poems have appeared
in a wide range of magazines in New Zealand and Australia. Oct $19.95

The Source of the Song: New Zealand Writers on Catholicism
Edited by MARK WILLIAMS

A dozen well-known New Zealand writers in various ways affected by Catholicism—
Gregory O’Brien, Fiona Farrell, Ken Arvidson, Elizabeth Smither, Dinah Hawken,
Christine Johnson, Anne Noble, Anne Kennedy, Geoff Cochrane, Joy Cowley,
Joanna Margaret Paul, Andrew Johnston, Bernadette Hall—explore the meaning of
that legacy in their lives and its effects on their writing. Some are lapsed, some opposed,
some practising; all express a mixture of gratitude and resistance for what Catholicism
has given them. Oct $29.95

How to be Nowhere: Essays and Texts 1971–1994
IAN WEDDE
‘Wedde, in his shrewdly anecdotal way, almost always cues in the larger questions a
work or show brings to mind. The modernism–primitivism debate, representations
of early contact between European and Polynesian, the significance of landscape, are
among the ongoing concerns of the collection. And since he writes as interestingly as
he does, my recommendation is unreserved. Get hold of a copy: attention repays
attention.’ —Alex Calder, Evening Post Aug $49.95