Short takes: Fiction

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON

Simon Mawer: The Fall

A tale of complicated emotional entanglements set against the towering backdrop of various splendid, terrible mountain ranges. A famous climber, Jim Matthewson, falls to his death from a rock face, and his one-time climbing companion and best friend, Rob Dewar, the story's narrator, comes to the funeral and begins to revisit and uncover the past and the darkness at the heart of it that has overshadowed his life. Rob takes the story back to his mother's wartime experiences, and the peculiar love triangle that existed between her, and Jim's mother and father, a mountaineer who was lost on Everest when Jim was a child. It moves gradually forward to his and Jim's own relationship. A skilful, tense, compelling story, but with an odd chill at its centre, probably brought on by the solitary, cool character of the narrator.

Little Brown, $39.95

* * *

Anne Donovan: Buddha Da

Jimmy is a fun-loving Glaswegian painter and decorator who likes his bevvy and football, and who's always game for a laugh. So it's a complete surprise to everybody when he begins meditating at the local Buddhist Centre. Nobody thinks it will last, but Jimmy is serious and slowly his new beliefs and lifestyle begin impacting on Liz, his beloved wife of 15 years and their 11-year-old daughter Anne-Marie. Jimmy gives up drinking, becomes vegetarian and then, without consultation, opts for celibacy. Not surprisingly, the marriage starts to disintegrate. Told in Glaswegian dialect, this is a wonderful, funny, fast read, but with serious themes and sensitive rendering of both the Buddhist faith (it's almost a beginner's guide, but with laughs built in) and the needs of individuals within families. Highly recommended, shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

Canongate, $36.95

* * *

Shena Mackay: Heligoland

THIS has been reviewed here and there, with enormous sympathy for Mackay's portrayals of loneliness, the fracturing of the community, youthful malice and rootlessness, and reviewers have praised her comic eye. It's the story of Rowena, a lost, lonely, self-pitying middle-aged woman who, needing somewhere to live, finds a room at the Nautilus, an unusual apartment building occupied by three other misfits. There they take refuge from a hostile world and gradually Rowena comes out of her shell. Heligoland has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize, but I found it depressing and dreary, despite the slow-burning beauty and sometimes sharp imagery in Mackay's writing.

Jonathan Cape, $54.95

* * *

William Kowalski: The Adventures of Flash Jackson

Those who loved Kowalski's first novel, Eddie's Bastard, but were disappointed by his second, Somewhere South of Here, will find this one a bit of a let-down, too. The narrator is 17-year-old Haley Bombauer, aka Flash Jackson. A tomboy, she's frustrated by a world "not designed with girls in mind". After breaking her leg she goes to live with her reclusive grandmother out in the woods and embarks upon a series of experiences that change her life. The grandmother, she discovers, is a kind of witch and Haley shares her special powers of prophecy and healing. She's an appealing narrator, but the story is a bit hokey and weak unless, possibly, female magic is your thing.

Doubleday, $34.95

* * *

Peter Simpson, editor: Seven New Zealand Novellas

Beginning with Katherine Mansfield's Prelude, Simpson has selected novellas from some of New Zealand's best authors to span 80 important years of writing: Frank Sargeson's That Summer, Maurice Duggan's O'Leary's Orchard, Patricia Grace's Valley, Albert Wendt's Flying-fox in a Freedom Tree, Peter Wells' Of Memory and Desire, and Elizabeth Knox's Pomare. The result is an intriguing short history of New Zealand middle-length fiction. These nicely juxtaposed stories share a dry, subdued humour and melancholic interiority.

Reed, $34.95