Review: Bug Week & Other Stories by Airini Beautrais

Bug Week & Other Stories by Airini Beautrais

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reviewed by Louise Ward, Wardini Books

This collection of short stories has just won the Jan Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and quite right too.

It's a bunch of finely honed, diverse, strange, disturbing and lovely tales.

The titular story concerns a woman who is dissatisfied. Her husband irritates her and her colleague, entomologist Don, begins to look more appealing by the day. She craves cleanliness, organisation, calm, and the quiet scientist appears to embody this. The story investigates wants and needs, desires and their reality.

The most bizarre and memorable story is The baddest Toroa in town, in which an albatross walks into a bar (it's no joke) and uses open mic poetry night to plead for his habitat.

It's startlingly beautiful — the audience is a little surprised to see him of course, but listen with a mixture of sympathy and irritation, this being a fishing village and the toroa's habitat their means of survival.

My favourite story, one that will sit with me for a while, is The girl who shaved the moose.

Wee Grace goes on a school trip to the local museum. She's one of those kids who means well, aggressive and curious, fiercely loyal to her teacher for his kindness.

She wanders off, keeping Mr Miles' comforting voice in range, and can't help but touch the taxidermied animals she encounters. She only means to give the moose a pat, but it feels strange and disturbing and her little fingers dig a bit too deep.

I love this story for its empathy, its recognition of a girl who experiences life through touch and the lovely, lonely teacher who really sees her.

Bug Week is a book to be lent, re-read and savoured. If a story confronts you, have to wonder why. If it moves you, lean into it. It's a delight.