Love, sex, death and writing feature in this collection of stories by one of New Zealand's finest, writes Cushla McKinney.
THE NAME ON THE DOOR IS NOT MINE
C.K. Stead
Allen & Unwin
By CUSHLA MCKINNEY
In today's blockbuster-obsessed environment, short fiction works are all too often overlooked in favour of the latest novel du jour and it is easy to forget that a well-crafted story can pack as much into 10 pages as a 1000-page doorstop.
My own formal introduction to New Zealand literature through the short stories of Mansfield, Sargeson, Frame and Stead dominates my memories of high school English, and this new collection from the sole surviving member of that illustrious quartet is every bit as evocative and thought-provoking as those stories I remember.
The stories, a combination of previously published, rewritten and new material, range across the globe and deal with the most important aspects of life: love, sex, death and writing. Some are chilling (my favourite, Anxiety, details one man's attempt at reassurance that goes horribly, terrifyingly wrong), while others are contemplative and laced with subtle humour: a pair of wings constructed from stolen umbrellas; a narrator so angry he refuses to use the first person in his own diary; a salesman's sexual encounter with an art dealer in Paris which turns out to be a commercial rather than an emotional transaction.
There is something here to suit almost any taste and mood, and the collection as a whole is thought-provoking and immersive without being overly heavy.
With such an extensive body of work to choose from, there is as much art in the selection as in the writing, and what struck me most about these stories is the way in which they fit together into something larger than the individual parts. Some form a series of loosely paired companion pieces linked by title, theme or structure: Sex in America and Marriage Americano, for example, or A Fitting Tribute and Determining Things to Destiny, both of which describe the life and the death of famous people from the perspective of ``insignificant'' individuals who played critical roles in the drama they relate.
Others are united by shared voice and sensibility that in many cases is difficult to separate from the author's own; narrated by writers or academics whose work involves mining the lives of others, albeit in a generally benign and/or mutually advantageous manner. This is particularly true of the titular novella that rounds out the collection, which is about a mid-career English lecturer on study leave who becomes obsessed with the poet whose office he, as a ``Distinguished Visitor'', is the temporary occupant of, and around whom he eventually builds his own career. Everything from the descriptions of the inventive solution he finds to remaining warm in the midst of the Canadian winter to the digs at the politics of academic and literary success invites readers to hear the warm, humorous and appealingly confessional voice of Stead himself whispering in their ears.
Of course the very title offers fair warning against such a simplistic interpretation, and the prospect of such intimacy will not appeal to everybody, but The Name On The Door Is Not Mine certainly captures the essence of one of our most celebrated writers at his inimitable best.
Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.
Win a copy
The ODT has five copies of The Name on the Door is Not Mine, by C.K. Stead, to give away, courtesy of Allen & Unwin. For your chance to win a copy, email helen.speirs@odt.co.nz with your name and postal address in the body of the email and ‘‘C.K. Stead Book Competition’’ in the subject line, by 5pm on Tuesday, December 6.
LAST WEEK’S WINNERS
Winners of last week’s giveaway, The Dark Flood Rises, by Margaret Drabble, courtesy of Text Publishing, were Dave Sutton, of Cromwell, and Heidi Kleinschmidt, Julia Davies, Murat Ungor and Wayne Sutherland, all of Dunedin.
