Like his previous, much-acclaimed Gifted, Patrick Evan's fourth novel is - among other things - a study of the internal and external workings of a writer. It starts as caustic, almost slapstick comedy, then moves towards deepening complexity and resonance.
North Canterbury-born, Algerian independence-supporting, scarily-realistic Raymond Lawrence, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (though a lot of people felt Seamus Heaney should have won that year), is dead. Years after his explosive demise, the reputation of this "monster, genius, martyr", and of the trust which aims to preserve his house and memory, appear to be dying as well.
The roof needs replacing. Petty thefts (books, a toilet roll, a paua ashtray - with ash) are continuing. Some swine is producing garden gnomes in the shape of the late great. Steps must be taken. But in which direction: preservation or homicide?
In yet another post-quake Christchurch setting, the trustees meet and bicker. When Raymond the Master was alive, they all "seemed ... to loom a little larger in the world". Now they're dwindling, also. They can't decide whom to turn to or against.
The Master's fiction appears to have been pretty strong stuff: murder, rampant sex, cannibalism. But he's becoming past tense (there's a wonderfully accurate Creative Writing Class scene where the next lot of aspiring authors haven't read him - or anyone).
So is it worth fighting to keep alive his memory and his Creative Arts School, at whose opening he behaved so unspeakably? And if so, how?
