Vanya Lowry: From the Wisteria Bush

By MARGIE THOMSON

This memoir by artist/illustrator Lowry of growing up as daughter of printer, typographer, poet and party-giver Bob Lowry will fascinate those interested in local literary history, but also captivates in a more general way with its stories of growing up in Auckland in the 1950s and 1960s.

There is at times an almost childlike tone to Lowry's storytelling, and an air of wistfulness hangs over her memories: the wild literary parties that she and her sisters observed from the eponymous wistaria bush, her visit as a small child to Frank Sargeson's home, and the deaths of both her parents, Bob's by suicide in 1963.

AUP

$39.95