Book review: Unspeakable Secrets Of The Aro Valley

Danyl McLauchlan's first novel is about an eponymous novelist. Photo / Robert Cross

Unspeakable Secrets Of The Aro Valley by Danyl McLauchlan
(Victoria Univ. Press $35)

A first novel from a Wellington biologist and blogger (I had to tell you that), Unspeakable Secrets Of The Aro Valley is a great title. And its blurb is intriguing: the publishers call it "a classic Kiwi comic mystery erotic horror adventure novel", which is comprehensive.

It's set very specifically in Wellington's iconic central city gully, with its tottery three-storey houses, diverse emporia and idiosyncratic inhabitants. We get street names, track details, evocations of Aro Park with its waft of illicit substances.

The protagonist is also named Danyl - how very Generation Y-Z. He's eternally innocent and adolescent, engagingly eager, randy and calamity-prone. He's been ditched by his lady; he's writing a sort of novel; his wardrobe sometimes comes from the hospital lost-and-found trolley. You'll warm to him.

After near-decapitation by a wild, old shovel-wielder, Danyl is instantly into a set-up involving a Cult, a Temple, and a Well. There are century-old mysteries in Epuni St.

Rooms are wrecked. So is a garden. Satanists slink around; a man in a photo has his face scratched out; a white van and a dark tower feature. Rather a lot of enigmatic objects are uncovered and opened.

The suspense cranks up. Will Danyl with his spontaneously re-injured leg get down the elevator shaft? Will the SSS find The Priest's Soul? What the hell is The Priest's Soul?

Lots of entertaining set pieces and half-set people. You'll like the Wellness Heal U Centre, run by a well-endowed witch, and Steve the psychologist who worries about the professional ethics of assaulting an elderly Satanist. You should like the tetchy Deputy Chief Hierophant.

They're part of a lively cast of alternatives and oddballs, melancholics and frenetics. Even the doctor is a pothead who has ambled off to Bhutan.

Characters declaim a lot. Fair enough: nearly every one of them is a performance, and their discourses are entertainingly extra-dimensional. "I have found a way to transfer the story of the self to a timeless vessel." Uh-huh.

Things stay clever right up to the Acknowledgments. McLauchlan kicks it all along energetically, keeps the mood swinging effectively between melodrama and deflation.

There's a nice underpinning of neediness and affection, plus an ending where all that's gold doesn't necessarily glitter. It's never dull, and often threatens to become addictive.

Aro Comic Noir just may become a literary cult of its own.