The long-time Alexandra resident celebrates the publication of River of Blood: tales of the Waiatoto (Longacre) with a book launch at Central Stories, Alexandra tonight.
Mr Breen (66) is a professional quantity surveyor who has worked in the family business, The Breen Construction Company Ltd, since 1966, acting as manager from 1978-2003.
He has taken on building contracts in Central Otago, southern New Zealand and further afield, often in extreme conditions.
A keen hunter, fisherman, climber and skier, he was introduced to the Waiatoto, South Westland, by Kerry Eggeling in 1977.
In River of Blood, Mr Breen focuses on the Eggeling family and what it has been like to live, work, raise a family, hunt, explore and climb in the Waiatoto, a place of isolation, rugged geography, powerful and hazardous rivers, dense bush and atrocious weather.
Mr Breen said the book project had been "hugely rewarding and educational in many ways".
"Without Brian Turner, I would never have got to a publisher, I don't think.
I was stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Turner took it up, criticised it, pulled it to bits and sent it to off to Longacre, who sent it back saying, `it's no good the way it is; you've told us what they do but haven't told us about their characters' - that sort of stuff.
So I had to go back and try to bring it to life.
"When it got to the publishers, emails were going back and forth like quail out of a matagouri bush, but it was all thoughtful and educational. The deeper knowledge of the people and place became central to the book."
