Cousins

by Patricia Grace

Mata, Makareta, and Missy, three Maori cousins, once shared a magical childhood moment. They have since followed separate and very different paths, yet their struggles offer insightful glimpses into the lives of contemporary New Zealand women. Patricia Grace's keen eye records the psychological, cultural, and political circumstances that color and circumscribe their worlds in this engaging, compassionate story.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Indigenous, Book Club, Audiobook, Feminism, Contemporary

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Patricia Grace is a major New Zealand novelist, short story writer and children’s writer, of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent, and is affiliated to Ngati Porou by marriage. Grace began writing early, while teaching and raising her family of seven children, and has since won many national and international awards, including the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for fiction, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, widely considered the most prestigious literary prize after the Nobel. A deeply subtle, moving and subversive writer, in 2007 Grace received a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a miserable, cold, wet Sunday I sat down with this book and became oblivious to the weather. This story captured me and transported me. The wonder of books and storytelling is that they allow us to not only see the world from another perspective, but also to feel the emotions of the characters as if you are walking in their shoes. Books take you to places that movies can't reach because when watching a movie you are always a spectator, always on the outside looking in. A book allows you inside, looking out.

Patricia Grace is a New Zealand Maori author and her books resonate with the pain of her people. Cousins tells the story of three female cousins who grow up in the period immediately after World War II when there was mass migration of Maori from rural areas into cities and towns and a huge loss of their culture and identity. Mata, Makareka and Missy have very different lives and upbringings but all three are shaped by being part of a culture of conquered peoples who have to fight to retain their own language, land and beliefs in their own homeland.

Missy grows up in a strong Maori family and community, but her life is blighted by poverty which affects her schooling. Part of the poverty is caused by her grandmother punishing her mother for marrying a man not deemed suitable. Her mother's rejection of tradition and her grandmother's refusal to change make for a harsh life for Missy and her siblings. Despite the poverty Missy has her language, her culture and strong family love and support but she is not equiped to live outside this small community.

Mata's story is the saddest. Born to a European father she is left in a children's home after her mother dies when she is only 5 years old. She is brought up with no knowledge of her people or culture or language and with a strong feeling of inferiority and shame for not being white. Mata fits in nowhere.

Makareta is Mata's opposite. She is educated, cherished and nurtured by her grandmother and grows up with a strong understanding of her culture and is fluent in both Maori and English. She can straddle both worlds and becomes very influential in the burgeoning rennaissance of Maori identity that takes place in the last decades of the twentieth century. But ironically Makareta is only able to succeed because she rejects an arranged marriage that her grandmother tries to ambush her into.

I became engrossed in the moving and compelling lives of these three main characters, as well as the minor family members whose lives intersect and connect with theirs. Patricia Grace is a wonderful writer and her prose is effortless and fluid. Although this is very much a New Zealand story and a Maori story, this story could be applied to most conquered indigenous peoples in most countries of the world. As someone lucky enough to be born one of the victors rather than the vanquished, this book gave me an insight into the realities of life for the people on the losing end of colonialism. I highly recommend this book.

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Grace is one of the authors I am currently focused on, in terms of buying and reading. I loved Chappy, which I read a couple of years ago, and the handful of her short stories I read in high school so I am looking forward to reading all her writing and getting more of a sense of her as a writer. Cousins is one I was especially wanting to read because it was recently made into a movie. When possible I prefer to read the book first.

Initially I had trouble keeping track of what was happening and who it was happening to, but this clicked into place fairly early, and once it did I never lost track of what was happening. The book follows three cousins Mata, Makareta, and Missy. Their lives vary greatly, and I loved each of them. Spanning decades, I enjoyed reading about the New Zealand they lived in, and the evolution of their lives. I'm curious to see how this translates to film.
Mata in particular was character I felt especially attached to. Raised away from her family, apart from one brief visit, she watches and waits and it is heartbreaking. In contrast, Makareta is the one the family is preparing to be great, and her life blossoms and flourishes in unexpected directions. There are of course pressures to being the 'chosen one' but that kind of situation also prepares you for life -- you can turn your back on plans because you know things and know you can go elsewhere. Following this, alongside Mata, who has been left to flounder, was deeply sad. Finding out later how her family had tired to find her makes it all the worse. She could have found her place and home much earlier if she hadn't been deliberately cut off from it. Perhaps her life would have then followed a path more similar to her two cousins..

Patricia Grace's writing is beautiful -- I'm already on my way to considering her a favourite writer, though I will have to read a few more of her books to confirm that! I am especially looking forward to her autobiography.

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story follows the very different lives of three Maori cousins living in New Zealand. Mata is the first cousin that we begin to learn about, and as a small child she is brought to the home of her aunt and grandparents for a visit. It becomes clear rather quickly that she does not feel comfortable in this environment because she's been raised in non-Maori customs. Mata continues to remind herself about her Christian upbringing, which leads to problems of modesty (for example, her cousins pee outside on the grass and for Mata this is seen as very inappropriate). She also thinks that everyone is always speaking "in a language she didn't understand" (p37). She's referring to members of the family that can speak Maori, so the reader begins to understand that she has not learned Maori from her mother (who has passed, we come to learn) or from her father (a Pakeha who likely never knew Maori).

When Mata considers what her grandparents' home will be like she continues to compare it to previous experiences from her paternal grandparents' home. She thinks there will be a glass verandah, big kitchens, etc., and this is not the case when she reaches the home of her Maori grandparents. Thus, we are led to believe that Mata has been raised in a situation where she does not identify with being Maori, which seems to be problematic and she has trouble adjusting to the new environment and making friends with her cousins. In fact, when she arrives she keeps saying that her name is "May Palmer" but her family tells her that her given name was Mata. As Keita tells her, "'He (her father) didn't want any Maori name or any Maori daughter for that matter, or wife. Only wanted a slave for him and a prospect of land'" (p45). This seems to be the case because her father's family is no longer interested in Mata once they realize the father cannot inherit the land--only Mata can--which leads her to become a ward in the home of another Pakeha woman.

Mata has to return "home" to where she is a ward, and never ends up returning even though it is clear that her Maori family wants to take her in as one of their own. She ends up working at a factory where she does make friends with another Maori woman, and eventually she marries a Maori man named Sonny. The relationship is strained because Mata has issues with her identity and she does not really enjoy a sexual relationship with Sonny, who eventually strays. She finds herself single and takes in a friend's child, but the friend eventually returns for the child, leaving Mata alone again. Devastated, she ends up walking the roads alone.

Makareta is the next cousin we are introduced to. She lives more of a traditional Maori life and goes into detail about birthing and mothering her child. But there is a war going on and her husband Rere is soon deployed to Europe and ends up dying there. Makareta lives with the family for some time but the elders eventually want her to marry Rere's younger brother. Unable to find interest in the arrangement, Makareta leaves and takes her daughter with her. But eventually the family comes to take the daughter back home with them so that she can learn and live her Maori heritage.

Missy is another, shorter, story about Missy's life but because of its brevity it seems to leave much to be desired. Eventually Makareta begins trying to change her community and, especially, issues the Maori are having with the government. She also finds Mata at one point and attempts to bring her home.

A wonderful story about the ordeals Maori women face in their lives and how very different those lives can be based on where a person chooses to live, whom they choose to love, etc.

[Lauren]

"But we were up and walking, up and talking because we needed our own answers. We were the ones to know the missing pieces that had been salvaged and reclaimed before they became irretrievable."

▫️COUSINS by Patricia Grace, 1992.

#ReadtheWorld21 📍Aotearoa New Zealand

An interwoven tale of three Māori girls in 20th century Aotearoa. Mata, Makareta, and Missy share early childhood days in the 1940s/50s and grow apart as they age, connecting again as older women.

Mata moves to Wellington as a student in a largely white boarding school and had little to no links with her family and culture.
Makareta's story has the most depth, from a life torn apart by WWII, her struggles finding housing and work due to racism and prejudice against her status as an unmarried mother, and her friendship with an eccentric woman who keeps parrots.
Missy's story is shorter, combining several musical/lyrical interludes and references to the large family of cousins and elders she lives with in a large multigenerational household.

Grace writes about the everyday of each cousin - their foods and cooking, their rides on the bus to work, and a lot about the Māori language. My favorite parts of the book involved the growing consciousness and activism in the 70s and 80s to teach Māori language in the schools, and other social and land rights issues of Indigenous peoples in Aotearoa.

Grace is one of the most recognized Māori writers. I also picked up her more recent CHAPPY (2015) as an ebook, which I hope to get to soon.

[Josephine Draper · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exploration of three women, and their relationship to home. In this case, home is the family whenua (land) in an undisclosed location (possibly Northland), but lovingly evoked as a place where generations of an extended iwi grow up together. Our three heroines Makareta, Missy and Mata have very different relationships with their home, and the book explores these relationships through their life experiences.

I identified most strongly with Makareta, the assertive one, but loved the idea of Missy, finding her way by owning her place in the world, and Mata the lost one evokes sympathy.

There is some beautiful lyrical writing here. This sentence towards the end of the book: 'I know that the first movement - a silent drawing-back of a bare foot in the silent house - was made in defence of Mama' to me was a wonderful example. Patricia Grace has a real way with words, a way of making the every day - the finding of a marble, the description of a picture frame, seem magical, mystical and make you wish you too had that ancestral connection with land.

I enjoyed this book, and the characters, although I felt the narrative suffered a little through the device of changed focal characters and timelines through the different sections. I would also have liked the conclusion to have had more focus on the relationships between the three cousins.

[Kiriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most incredible (!!!!) and well written book I have ever read. My first time reading Patricia Grace and I understand the legend status.

There a multiple narrators:

- Missy, Makareta and Mata as young girls
- an unborn twin
- a runaway mother
- Missy, Makareta and Mata as young adult woman
- and the three woman in middle age.

Despite jumping throughout 50 years with 10+ narrator changes it’s never confusing - it’s the most cleverly crafted piece of Māori fiction.

My favourite quote was:
“…culture is deep…It is not something that can be adequately explained to those of another culture, but neither should it need to be explained, I think. It only needs, at least, to be allowed, to be let be, to be trusted.”

[zespri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.

I'm sure being a New Zealander gave me a head start, even though a pakeha one, as the three cousins of the title are all maori and born around the forties. The book follows the women through to the present day, with separate chapters as the women tell their stories.

I'm grateful for writers like Patricia Grace. I will never understand fully a culture that is so different to my own, but novels like this help to lift the veil a little, and allow us insight, and hopefully a deeper understanding of what it means to be maori in a mainly pakeha prevalent society.

[C. (Comment, never msg). · Rating 3 out of 5]

My good friend is giving me New Zealand literature and it all invaluably takes me on an erratic spectrum of lifestyles and personages that populate every country. From only Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace: I have visited 1940s history onwards, the modern 1980s half in and out of traditionalism, and 2015 portraying mixed New Zealanders and international relatives.

In “Cousins” 1992, alone, I saw the poor wash in rivers and pee in the grass at night. I know farming folks hunt but was unprepared to read of a boy yanking a snake from its den and expecting his family to eat it. I understand the author showed how lowly they lived but animal death surfaced so often, it overstepped illustrating a point. When we learn a city home’s former cats were murdered but it KEPT getting called ‘cat house’ without adding a new family of felines, it upset me and I docked a star in support of animals.

Illustrations Patricia made that were educational rather than gratuitously grim were the pressure of Aboriginal races to preserve their customs, a historic land rights march, and the prejudiced pulling of Maori children from their families and environments, not unlike the poor snake. If I think about it, a chief message of the triple stories is that however these cousins grew up, the decisions they make for themselves will steer their worlds. An ironic problem with this authoress is making one character an automaton. Chappy in 2015 and Mala here would be dead if people did not pick them up literally, which is annoying. Mala had an affordable house and freedom to make new friends or partners but slumped down.

Missy was raised in poverty near an affluent Grandmother, which I deem unbelievable! She intended to better her situation in the city or country and I wanted to see more of her as an adult. Makareta was lauded as a princess but disrespected when that Grandma made plans clandestinely. She did not slump down either

I told my friend I would try Patricia once more if there is a story without animal death or a useless character. However, I understand the well exposed cultural history she wanted to show me and the author plots that aspect well. An abruptly unhappy ending after persevering where positivity had been sparse, does not reward readers. I balanced the rich history and dynamic characters with three stars.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

When looking for a recent movie to watch I came across Cousins, and at the end the credits said it was based upon a novel by Patricia Grace. Fortunately, my local library had a copy of it for me to read. It is not often that I seek out a novel after I have seen the screen version unless I enjoyed it. Obviously, the novel had a more in-depth plot and I felt that reading it after seeing it was a better. Often I find seeing the movie first spoils the novel for me but fortunately not in this case.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to kick off my first review for Indigenous Literature Week with a novel by Patricia Grace of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent, because she is visiting Melbourne for the Melbourne Writers Festival and the First Nations Australia Writers’ Network Workshop. Grace is one of New Zealand’s best known writers and has an impressive body of work which includes novels, short stories and children’s books. Her best known work is probably the ground-breaking Potiki (1986) which I reviewed a while ago but I also enjoyed Baby No-Eyes which came out in 1998. (See my review). In between these two novels, however, came Cousins in 1992, and I think I like this one best of all.

(But perhaps I should reserve my judgement because I’ve just ordered her new one, Chappy, from Readings – and it’s getting rave reviews in NZ. I also found a copy of Tu (2004) at Brotherhood Books, so these are treats in store.)

Cousins begins with the heart-breaking story of Mata. There are three interlocking stories, with narrations that shift to allow for differences in intimacy. We meet Mata striding along the road at night, barefoot and with nothing but the clothes on her back and a photo of her mother, who died when she was a little girl. Mata’s story is poignantly told from her child’s point-of-view, punctuated by her middle-aged first-person narration, which works like a barrier against revealing her feelings.


Where? Didn’t want to ask where or why, or to have thoughts that lead to thinking. Only wanted hands in shoes in pockets and just herself, her own ugly self, with her own big feet and big hands, her own wide face, her own bad hair, which was turning white, springing out round her big head. One coat, one dress. Shoes on their last legs or in their last pockets, a photo in a frame, and her name. (p. 14)

Mata Pairama spent her childhood adrift from her culture. Her father refused to let her extended family take care of her and abandoned her to the guardianship of Mrs Parkinson, who offloaded her to an orphanage. Her childhood was spent in terror of an omnipotent Old Testament God, in the loneliness of a child who belongs to no one, and in confusion about her identity. She is re-named May Palmer, but that doesn’t make her acceptable to the mother of her only friend, Betty, who wasn’t allowed to bring dirty, black children into the house…

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/08/26/co...

[rabbitprincess]

This is probably a case of starting a book at the wrong time but not really having a better time to try again. The beginning was rather overwhelming in the amount of minutiae piled on the reader and the slight disorientation in time and space as we try to figure out where this woman is and how she came to be where she is now. I don't doubt that this book does what it's supposed to do, namely explore the lives of three cousins who have shared a magical childhood moment, but I don't think it's really what I'm after at the moment and I've managed to put it down for almost a week without having the slightest inclination to continue. Much as I liked Tu by this author, I don't think this is quite my cup of tea. Still, I won't hold that against her, hence my not rating this book.

[Bronwyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Patricia Grace, and recommend this.
Because her books are so rooted in New Zealand, other readers might miss the intent of some cultural references but they'll be rewarded so richly by reading her.
An exquisite writer not be missed!

[The Bibliognost Bampot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feel very sheepish admitting I haven’t read Patricia Grace before but this is the first of hers I have read and it was thought provoking, sad, intimate and revealing. As a New Zealander I felt it was a very important read.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I’m wrung out after finishing this beautiful story of three cousins, Mata, Makareta and Missy. Patricia Grace’s writing never fails to move me. Her characters and their lives resonate with me, and touch on experiences and emotions in my own Whānau. The anger, sadness and shame is real.

Despite her story being so personal and intimate , she succeeds in bringing into focus our country’s history, including racism, politics, the Maori renaissance and the role of women. I can’t help but think of the current political and social situation, and our future as a nation after reading Cousins.

I missed seeing the movie but hope to see it one day.

[Miquel Cufí Pericot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Des que neixen fins que moren, vas resseguint la vida de tres cosines: com es van distanciant entre elles, com van llaurant el seu propi camí i com es vinculen amb la cultura maorí, o se n'allunyen.

[LibraryKath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another stunning book by Patricia Grace. Again, like a lot of Māori novels, there is a cinematic quality to this book, that starts off quiet and gentle but then opens up to a vast story that sweeps you along to the point that you've read the whole book faster than you thought possible. Memorable characters, chock full of deep meaning and history, I couldn't put it down.

[pattan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so beautifully written and fucked me up. Possibly the best book I’ve read this year (maybe tied with Braiding Sweetgrass, funny bcs they kind of take up a similar place for me emotionally and in terms of intellectual development). Love the way Patricia Grace did the three distinct voices, the form of them expressing the aura each cousin brings about so well.

Might be the first book I’d recommend if someone wants to understand what colonisation means (or if I want them to lol. The grief and love that these fictional stories evoke, the gut-level understanding of the will to resist and struggle to decolonise is something that comes out more acutely in Cousins than in any detailed scholarly historical study of settler-colonialism in Aotearoa I’ve read — don’t get me wrong, an understanding of material history, and the internal logics of capitalism and settler colonialism is something that absolutely requires rigorous theoretical explication, but the emotional and bodily understanding is also so necessary, and I think it’s something that can be prematurely discarded when we immerse ourselves in non-fiction, it’s something we can forget the importance of when we do. I’ve known for a long while about the importance of reading fiction beyond pure enjoyment (not that there’s anything wrong with joy and whimsy for its own sake, though I doubt the stuff some of y’all mfers read do more than rot your brain [jarring shift in tone]), but only through this year’s reading have I started to truly understand.

[Francesca Pashby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The film of it lead me to this book; Patricia Grace is one of the pioneers of NZ literature and this story did not disappoint.

Set in the aftermath of the second world war, it documents the changing lifestyles and expectations of a Maori extended family who are moving (or being moved) from traditional ways of living into a more lonely Westernised future, the beginnings of the urban disconnect.

The three main characters are cousins and all follow different paths. Mata doesn't know her family as she had a pakeha (white) father who did not allow her to join her mother's people, even though he didn't want to look after himself. So she is lost in a system of so-called care, and is the emptiest character I think I have ever read ... a sad ghost, searching.

Then there is Makareta who is the 'chosen' one, and taught the ways of the old people and the language and customs. Yet she is the one who gets out and goes into the world as an advocate, leaving the expectations of those who raised her behind.

Finally there is Missy, who steps up and takes Makareta's place in what is essentially a business deal ... an arranged marriage, to keep land within families, but which she is proud to do.

This was a very bleak work to me (I've been told that's the NZ style!), but there was a lot of love within it. Some parts were a bit lecture-y, but I liked the fact that it was such a female book, and told from the three cousins' perspectives.

[Kate W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Patricia Grace was recommended to me as one of New Zealand's foremost novelists, and this story started out in an interesting way. As the story of the three cousins living their intersecting and disparate lives progressed through time, however, they began to feel less three-dimensional and their stories became removed from one another. Grace adds further challenges to the feeling of this being a cohesive story by varying person, including using the awkward second person.

[Bethany Garland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to as an audiobook and while the narration was lovely I think the impact of the three stories would have been higher if read it instead. It was hard-ish to follow the cousin's stories when coming in and out of it as audio.

I enjoyed following the three storylines and found so much of it sad but also insightful about the lives of the three women. A really well written perspective on New Zealand and I'll definitely read more by Patricia Grace - just not my cup of tea for a listen.

[Koa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about Maori living in their homeland and the struggles they face. Story follows a family and specifically the lives of three cousins from 1950s through closer to the end of the 20th century. Story about finding your place and finding your family. I love the way Grace writes, it's non linear story telling and very Pacific.

[Suzanne Whatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️.

[Erin Pickering · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Jemima Layzell · Rating 4 out of 5]

hmmmm

[Dan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final 3 chapters are worth the wait. Each has its own beauty.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. Chapters changed perspective and point of view which I found unique.

I enjoyed the cultural aspect of the text but wouldn’t read it again.

The novel felt slow, overly detailed and bored me in some sections. I suppose this isn’t the type of book I would normally read and thus didn’t enjoy the content or writing as much as I thought I would.

In saying this, the characters tell interesting stories!

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivated by the way Grace delicately interweaves the stories, without forcing. Each of the three women in the story breathes her own heavy, stirring development while at the same time contributes to a powerful family narrative. Beautiful insight into the complexity and diversity of Maori experience. Stirring, light-filled descriptions of the physical and social landscapes of NZ.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread after 12 years. As stunning as I remembered.

[George P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. confusing to follow but some good writing.

[Rowan Biggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wanted to read the book before watching the film and so glad I did. Moving and beautifully constructed, gave me goosebumps especially towards the end. Ngā mihi Patricia Grace.