A fresh way to look at New Zealand's history When writer and historian Peter Wells found a cache of family letters amongst his elderly mother's effects, he realised that he had the means of retracing the history of a not-untypical family swept out to New Zealand during the great nineteenth-century human diaspora from Britain. His family experienced the war against Te Kooti, the Boer War, the Napier earthquake of 1931 and the Depression. They rose from servant status to the comforts of the middle class. There was army desertion, suicide, adultery, AIDS, secrets and lies. There was also success, prosperity and social status. In digging deep into their stories, examining letters from the past and writing a letter to the future, Peter Wells constructs a novel and striking way to view the history of Pakeha New Zealanders.
Table of Contents:
Red Letter Day 7
Obscure Individuals 17
Dear Oliver 29
How to Read a Letter 71
The Coming Out Letter 95
To Whom It May Concern 117
How to Write a Letter 129
The Business Letter 155
Polly 175
What’s in a Name? 191
Local Hero 213
Dear Heroix 237
Silence Like a Bruise 259
The Failure of Language 291
Afterword 309
Acknowledgements, image credits, notes,
about the author, Northe family tree 320
About the Author :
Peter Wells (1950–2019) was a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and a writer/director in film. His fiction looked at a world of secrets, identity, subterfuge and illusion, frequently using the lens of a gay narrator. His first book, Dangerous Desires, won the Reed Fiction Award, the New Zealand Book Award, and the PEN Best New Book in Prose in 1992. His memoir Long Loop Home won the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Biography, and he won many awards for his work as a film director. He was the co-founder of the Auckland Writers Festival. In 2006, Wells was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature and film. His most recent histories examined William Colenso, a resident of Napier, and Kereopa Te Rau, the Pai Mārire follower who was hanged in Napier for murdering Reverend Carl Völkner. Dear Oliver brought to an end this Napier trilogy.
Review :
‘A wonderful feat of dexterity ... beautiful writing ... riveting and exciting’ — Tilly Lloyd, Unity Books
‘Dear Oliver is an important, meticulously researched book that will resonate with readers on many levels. It certainly brought a few tears of recognition to my eyes.’ — Linda Herrick, NZ Listener
‘You don’t just read this memoir; you feel it. ... It’s a meticulously written story, pitch-perfect and pace-perfect most of the time ... generous, forgiving, yet forensically unflinching when necessary.’ — David Hill, Weekend Herald
‘There is extensive research and content in this work, in what is a poignant and deeply sensitive portrayal of his ageing mother and confronting mortality.’ — Jessie Neilson, Otago Daily Times
