Michelle Duff is an award-winning journalist who’s written on social issues and climate change. She also wrote a 2020 biography of Jacinda Ardern – the one whose cover sometimes got turned around in bookstores – which interweaved Ardern’s rise to power alongside the author’s reflections on what it might mean for gender equality. Duff has now turned to fiction with this short story collection, which centres around women, their power and whether they truly hold it.
In one story, $$Britney$$, a young sex worker called Lauren starts to hate the sexual power she holds over people, because it “didn’t even work when you need it the most, like when it was someone special”. Running through the story is the refrain of someone who is coaching her to harness her sexual power for money: “You’ll be a natural, don’t worry about it. Look at those tits.”
Lauren appears, with her mate Jade, in another story, in which a cop is investigating a teacher who had been grooming high school girls to be sex workers. “We chose to do it, though,” Lauren says, while the cop thinks, in a perhaps surprisingly academic fashion: “Feminism has a lot to answer for. Repacking exploitation to make it seem like agency.” Perceptions of sexual power and consent shift, depending on who is telling the story, and who has the whole story.
The power dynamics between friends are also part of Duff’s focus. In Easy, Jess and Sylvie are best mates in a wider circle of girls. Jess believes she is the last one in the group to lose her virginity. Sylvie appears to be calling the shots about who Jess should be with, encouraging her to drop her current boyfriend and sleep with someone else. But when Jess does the deed, Sylvie is jealous and ostracises her from the group. While Sylvie was happy to have an underling and encourage her, when Jess surpasses her friend, it’s at the cost of their friendship.
There’s also a competitive edge between Genevieve and Tariana in Spook. As youngsters, they were gymnasts who supported each other but were also each other’s main rival. When they competed in the 1994 Commonwealth Games, Genevieve won gold but lost her friendship with Tariana. In Monstera, real estate agent Anastasia puts forward Cyndi, a fellow parent who is struggling for cash, for a role in the real estate office. But any thoughts of enduring support for the sisterhood seems to evaporate when Cyndi starts listing more properties than Anastasia, seemingly without putting in as many hours.
We see Anastasia in an earlier story, Gracie. Gracie and Adri’s mum is separated from the father of her children. There’s a hint they had to leave in a hurry because of violence in the home, so they’re living in a motel room. Gracie sees the danger and difficulties of their situation so calls Anastasia, the mum of her school friend, and asks her to find her a house. The story, one of the most affecting in the collection, illustrates the drawbacks of getting what you asked for, as well as demonstrating the power of the state.
Most of the stories have contemporary settings, but the collection’s title story weaves in history. It recounts how some women were shipped to New Zealand from England after World War I as domestic help, as well as to find a husband and start a family. The contemporary strand is about Zara, who has a husband and kids, seemingly living the dream of the women who came halfway around the world so long ago. As an archivist, she comes across the story of Irene, who was on the ship. The interweaving of the stories contrasts the experiences of the women and leaves the reader wondering about which of them has the most freedom.
Other stories have a speculative fiction element, such as angels orchestrating life on Earth while dealing with HR issues via Teams chat. In another, a hologram appears to remind a musician that his sexual encounters weren’t as consensual as he had imagined. Other stories are lists. The collection is funny, too. What’s not to love about an ex-gymnast grandmother who works as a spy and gathers information about a militant group?
Duff’s stories deal with big issues, but they never lose their focus on the characters – this is about people and their communities. There is a lightness of touch and a clarity of language that enables the characters to speak for themselves while acknowledging the structures of power that are constraining them.
Surplus Women, by Michelle Duff (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35), is out now.
