KEY POINTS:
Owen Marshall needs no introduction: he has been at the forefront of New Zealand literature for 30 years. He has won all our awards, prizes and fellowships, not to mention the imaginations of his readers. This collection marks three decades of work in which Marshall has dedicated himself to bringing New Zealanders stories about themselves.
It is no accident that one of Grahame Sydney's paintings adorns the covers of this collection, because he, like Marshall, is a provincial realist. Both have spent their careers capturing the raw essence of what it means to be a New Zealander and presenting it in an unsentimental and straightforward fashion. There is a sense, though, as one reads these stories or studies Sydney's paintings, that the New Zealand these men present exists only in our collective memories - it would be fair to say there is a wash of nostalgia in both the writer's and artist's works.
While the world has changed and moved on, Marshall's stories, for the most part, have not. They remain fixed in ideas, images and characters: there are your farmers, grumpy old men, and fathers and sons. These masculine men of the land all inhabit small rural towns or lonely isolated farms, and are sure to be overcoming some small social issues, or dealing with growing up, or understanding their places in the broad and endless landscape that makes up the South Island.
We enjoy this repetition of themes and character - it is familiar and comfortable and what we have come to expect from Marshall. But there is a hint in his final story, Watch of Gryphons, that he is on the verge of exploring other horizons.
It has been 11 years since Marshall published his "best of" collection. Since then he has produced two volumes and had a handful of stories included in various anthologies. A quarter of the stories found in this collection are drawn from this new work. There are also other selection differences between Marshall's earlier collection and this work. It seems that Marshall and O'Sullivan differ over which of his stories are really the best. But it doesn't matter - they are all good.
Reading Marshall is like taking a trip back to a time that never really occurred yet is vividly familiar. Flipping through the pages of this beautifully prepared edition and reading old favourites is a joy. For those who have not yet read him, this is the perfect opportunity to become acquainted with the master story-teller - nobody tells our stories better.
* Steve Scott is an Auckland reviewer.
Owen Marshall: Selected stories
Edited by Vincent O'Sullivan (Vintage $39.99)
