Witi Ihimaera: The Uncle's Story

Penguin

$34.95

Review: John Connor*

When Michael Mahana comes out of the closet he leaves the door open and all the family skeletons fall out behind him.

Enraged and bewildered by Michael's announcement, his father points an accusing finger at him: "Nobody in our family has ever been like you Michael. Nobody."

That, Michael discovers, is not true. Sam Mahana, the uncle Michael never knew, whom no one speaks about and who died nearly 30 years ago, was also homosexual. The Uncle's Story is his story and Witi Ihimaera tells it with great skill, passion and sensitivity.

In 1969 Arapeta Mahana, the fierce old warrior who fought in the Maori Battalion, farewells Sam, his oldest son, who is carrying on the proud tradition and going to fight in Vietnam. In Vietnam Sam learns about war, courage, fear, death and love.

War has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Ihimaera describes those moments in such vivid and appalling detail that reading about them in the comfort and safety of an armchair still quickens the pulse and tightens the muscles.

Sam escapes the bullets, the shrapnel, the claymore mines, booby traps and bamboo spikes but he can't escape Cliff Harper.

Cliff is an American helicopter pilot, a golden boy, devastatingly handsome, heroic and charming. The love Sam learns about in Vietnam, the love he feels for Cliff, is the love that dare not speak its name.

In the early 1970s this love might have whispered its name in the wider New Zealand society but never in Maori society, which Michael Mahana describes as the most homophobic in the world.

Many of Ihimaera's previous works, especially his short stories, present a sympathetic and positive portrayal of Maori society.

In The Uncle's Story he still shows sympathy for the spirituality, the myths, ancestry and history but he gives no quarter in his condemnation of the rigid, patriarchal and unforgiving attitudes typical of Maori society.

At its heart The Uncle's Story is a tragedy brought about by these attitudes. Because of them Arapeta Mahana, proud and dignified, becomes evil and despicable, loving aunties and sisters become weak and cowardly and the love between Sam and Cliff is destroyed.

It is impossible to read The Uncle's Story without feeling at least some of the anger and sadness that Ihimaera must feel towards these aspects of his own people.

There is a strong message in The Uncle's Story, a plea for tolerance, understanding and forgiveness. Through the interaction between powerful characters like Arapeta Mahana, Sam Mahana and Cliff Harper we hear the message loud and clear, though none of them steps out of character to deliver it.

Unfortunately some of the less powerful characters have a tendency to preach less lofty messages directly to the reader. The clever young lobbyist, Roimata, for instance, seems to have been invented for this purpose. She never misses an opportunity to inform us of the correct political interpretation of whatever is going on.

Although Ihimaera tries to present her in a sympathetic light she ends up being just as irritating in fiction as such characters are in reality.

Fortunately these lapses are rare. The Uncle's Story is a work of such honesty and integrity and so well told that it soars high above these irritations.

* John Connor is an Auckland writer and lecturer.