Author(s): Graeme Lay

NZ Fiction

A boy discovers that love can be found in the unlikeliest places but so too can cruelty. In the islands of the South Pacific European people search for solace. And amid the harsh realities of today's academia there is little room for the artistic soul. This three-part collection of short stories takes the reader from a touching coming-of-age sequence in New Zealand to the dream-time that is today's Pacific Islands, then, finally, into the bizarrely hilarious world of literary and academic politics. Through a colourful cast of characters, the stories explore the experience of growing up and making one's way in the uniquely beautiful region of the South Pacific. In her foreword, distinguished novelist Shonagh Koea writes of this, Graeme Lay's collection of new and selected short stories: " . ..all contain the guileful compulsion of entertainment, which is what reading is all about"