KEY POINTS:
Modern technology means that books which may not have made it into print if submitted to mainstream publishers are increasingly appearing in shops, via personal presses. Is this a good thing? Sometimes.
And certainly in the case of this tender, quiet narrative of a New Zealand love affair. Beth Sutherland has taken extracts from her mother's diaries, punctuating them with her father's letters to his "dear chick", written from the Western Front in World War I.
Ilma's life is modest, domestic, crammed: "to Willow Park and Caledonian Social Evening ... Fine, frost. Hung clothes out." But darkness gathers. A brother dies.
Young Len Wilton, whom she fancies, enlists and is sent overseas. In letters from England and France he describes the bloodshed and boredom of life as an artilleryman. He shudders with cold; complains that "this French lingo is no good to me"; sews the bodies of dead comrades up in blankets; lists his friends who have died.
Back home, Ilma also keeps her records of the dead, and keeps herself busy with shearing, soldiers' dances, making home comforts for the troops. Len came back. They married, farmed in Wairarapa, endured the Depression, played rugby, raised their children, and lived unassuming, moral, industrious lives.
Their youngest daughter has honoured them with this handsome publication. There are photos, maps, facsimiles, poems, sketches, sidebars with social and family history which Sutherland has selected carefully and competently.
This isn't necessarily a stand-out addition to the burgeoning list of letters, diaries, memoirs recording our wars and peace, but it is certainly a worthy one.
* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.
My Dear Chick
By Beth Sutherland
(Fraser Books, Masterton, $35)
