Norman Bilbrough: A Short History of Paradise

This apparently related to the time Wellington-based Norman Bilbrough spent living on a commune in the 70s and 80s, an experience that was hopefully more interesting than this well-crafted but dull novel.

Subtitled a story of peace, love and a crop of dope, A Short History of Paradise centres around a motley group of hippies, or "freaks", who reside in Paradise, the supposedly idyllic commune of the title, which "lay up a long valley between Blenheim and Nelson".

Bilbrough opens his tale with a short prologue set in 1976, which details the foundation of Paradise by a freak called Buff, before jumping to 1978 and the arrival of the commune's next two residents, Carl and Radha, a woefully stereotyped middle-class English hippie, who "looked more Anglo-Saxon than Lord Baden Powell".

Radha provides Paradise with the necessary bread to get off the ground before she and Buff both disappear into the background.

Most of the novel proper takes place in the late 70s and 80s with Bilbrough dividing his narrative between various characters, most notably gullible, straight-laced Tony, who apparently impregnates another resident, the selfishly immature Sadie, after a one-night stand; Lucy, who naively falls into a life of prostitution and then keeps Paradise's beleaguered finances afloat by regularly returning to her day job; and Jug, a repellent, manipulative womaniser, who despite being impossibly ugly, is seemingly irresistible to the opposite sex.

For someone who has enjoyed the good life, Bilbrough's depiction of the freaks is as superficial and unsympathetic as is the attitude of the neighbouring cliched Christians.

Meanwhile, the predictable plot, which revolves around the clandestine growth of a marijuana crop and the threat that eventually poses to the continuing existence of the community, is slow to develop and doesn't grab attention when it does.

There is obviously nothing wrong with setting a book in the past but it has to have some relevance to the present day and unfortunately, A Short History of Paradise reads as if it were written two decades ago.

Ultimately, like other books set in remote wonderlands such as Alex Garland's The Beach, A Short History of Paradise should make the reader long to at least visit the fictional community concerned. But Bilbrough's local utopia is one paradise where you wouldn't want to be stranded.

* Stephen Jewell is an Auckland journalist
* Penguin, $28