Bronwyn Tate: Halfway to Africa

By PAT BASKETT

If the title conjures visions of the exotic - forget them. It's a metaphor for where most of us are in our lives - halfway to somewhere more interesting than the place in which we seem stuck.

But this is not a gloomy novel. Tate's talent is to show the warmth of human contacts and the bonds of family.

The setting is familiar; the characters are ordinary people who inhabit the Auckland of today and of a generation ago. It's the characters' inner world that is important and Tate takes us successfully into those tricky spots we all know when difficult decisions are made or when conversation fails. She has the knack of articulating the awkwardness of social intercourse, as well as the level of intimacy that exists between siblings.

There are dissatisfactions, though. The key characters are two sisters, near enough in age to be taken for twins, and friends rather than rivals during their childhood. Tate's portrayal of Monica, the sister we know most about, struck me as inconsistent. She has a university degree and, after her marriage and the birth of her two sons, spends the evenings in a darkroom working on her photography. During the day she cleans other people's houses - for the satisfaction of restoring order out of chaos, rather than for economic necessity. A curious occupation.

Structurally, this novel has its challenges. We're expected to keep track of a plethora of characters and their relationships to one another (some of which aren't made clear until the end), as well as the time-frame within which a particular chapter operates. This stems partly from Tate's method of imparting a character's backstory, and partly from the desire to keep the reader guessing.

That's less of a problem if you can read the book in large chunks rather than in 10-minute encounters before sleep. I'd save it for a holiday when there's time to lose oneself in Tate's easy language which so effortlessly reproduces the twists and turns of thought.

University of Otago Press

$29.95

* Pat Baskett is an Auckland journalist.