Vivienne Plumb: Secret City

Reviewed by PAT BASKETT

Rivers, to my knowledge, are never blue, but one exists on the first page of this novel. Despite my doubts, I was riveted by Plumb's writing - her lovely description of the place and her introduction of her character, Antonella. My interest continued when I met Frank, Antonella's down-and-out ex-husband, and deepened with the appearance of Qin Qin - Chinese, young and vulnerable.

I laughed at the idea of a nosy neighbour called Mrs Mirrorglazi, and I continued to be amused and moved as these characters' lives unfolded. Through Antonella, who lectures in a university department of sexology, Plumb deliciously lampoons academia and reverses the stereotype of male lecturer seducing female student.

Frank's habitat and habits are intimate and familiar. He's a primary school teacher made redundant and a wannabe writer, and he occasions a wicked take-off of writing courses, this one taught by Crescentia Virtue, also known as Big Arse. Frank buys exercise books and goes down to the local cafe to write. His loneliness leads him to encounter Qin Qin at the local brothel.

There is nothing comic about Qin Qin and the tragedies that brought her to New Zealand - the death of her mother and the need to pay off a huge debt. The moment I met her she leaped off the page. But as the story of these intertwining lives progresses, something goes wrong. Qin Qin ceases to act and speak like the naive 17 year-old she started out as and the characters become vehicles for Plumb's idea about the nature of reality and its relationship to imagination.

Qin Qin and Antonella take part in a memory experiment in which their reality and that of the novel become confused. The secret city of the title, originally the name of a fantasy game played by Antonella and her sisters, is the title of a novel Frank is writing and of the place in which the experimentees find themselves. Comedy gives way to farce and by the end I had ceased to laugh.

It's interesting how serious a distraction trivia can be. I found the typographical errors and the typeface annoying.

Cape Catley $24.95

* Pat Baskett is an Auckland journalist.