Book review: Richard Shaw's The Forgotten Coast

Richard Shaw. Photo / Supplied

The Forgotten Coast
by Richard Shaw
(Massey University Press, $35)

Family histories are having a moment in the sun. Charlotte Grimshaw's The Mirror Book gave us an account of a privileged mid-late 20th century childhood amid perceived neglect. Alexander McKinnon's Come Back to Mona Vale records three generations of a wealthy Christchurch family and the damage done along the way. Both books are exquisitely written and told from expansive yet intimate viewpoints.

Richard Shaw takes a two-pronged approach to his account of another Pākehā family, this time in Taranaki. First to arrive was Andrew Gilhooly, a farmer from County Limerick, Ireland, in 1874. He became part of the Armed Constabulary that helped build the military road between Ōkato and Ōpunake, a road that later enabled the invasion and sacking of Parihaka in 1881. The early part of the book details the appalling treatment of Māori in the Taranaki, not only the brute violence meted out by the colonial government but also the convoluted red tape that bound their land into long, forever-renewable leases.

Shaw writes too of leading Māori of the time, Te Whiti, Tohu and Titokowaru, all of whom endured imprisonment, the rape of their women and the loss of their homes, farms and communities. Shaw feels particularly burdened by Parihaka, since one of his ancestors was involved. After the land grab, Gilhooly ended up in possession of a substantial farm and other blocks of land in the Taranaki, which set his family up for generations.

The second prong of the book is Shaw's meditations on his father and Uncle Dick. His much-loved father, who grew up in an orphanage, had a "language built on silences" and offered Shaw "a particular way of being a man". His uncle studied in Rome and became a doctor of divinity in the early 1930s.

Chiming throughout these accounts are nostalgic notes of the lost farming community and church networks in Taranaki, with their dances, competitions, and parades. Shaw seems to mourn the passing of these close-knit communities almost as much as he mourns his ancestor's part in the pillaging of Parihaka.

One of the delights of The Forgotten Coast is the reference to writers here and abroad, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Tom Stoppard, Owen Marshall, W.H. Auden, Aldous Harding, Tim Winton, Cormac McCarthy, Emma Espiner, Hilary Mantel and Dick Scott. The writer heralded more than any other is Rachel Buchanan and, in particular, her seminal The Parihaka Album: Lest We Forget.

Shaw's father, Bob, wrote a 200-page family memoir that could be treasured by his descendants, whereas Shaw's book may offend some of them, especially those who prefer to remain in what Buchanan dubs the "dementia wing", i.e. a state of amnesia with regard to Parihaka. It is likely, though, that most will enjoy the book, especially the more recent material about their clever priest. A broader readership may find much of the family detail tedious.

Ultimately, no cure is offered for the ongoing white guilt that plagues many thinking New Zealanders. The bald fact is that Parihaka happened and that we must go on wrestling not only with the historical fact but also its legacy.

- Reviewed by Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Johnson's most recent books are the novel Everything Changes (Penguin Random House 2021) and the biography/social history West Island: five twentieth century New Zealanders in Australia (Otago University Press 2019). A longer version of this review will appear on www.anzliterature.com.