Landed

by Sue McCauley

From the author of Other Halves (1982) which won both the Wattie Book of the Year Award and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction and sold more than 20,000 copies. It’s the early 1990s in Timaru, and Brewer Howland has killed himself. His wife, Briar, is left stranded in a rapidly changing world. The future she took for granted has been obliterated and she must invent a new one. But how does a sixty-something widow go about creating a future for herself in a world she struggles to comprehend? She has taken a sharp right-hand turn into familiar territory, and everything seems to be rapidly changing: values, language, telephones, families, race relations, gadgets. Amid this tsunami of ‘progress’ Briar must decide how and where to live out her life. If her children and grandchildren had turned out to be lovingly bonded family cluster she’d hoped to raise they might have been future enough. But her children are scattered and disputations. Briar longs to return to the farmland where she grew up, but this seems unlikely. While she is trying to plan ahead, Briar’s future is quietly taking on a shape of its own. Given time, and enough indecision, it seems an ominously sharp turn to the right can eventually lead you to just where you wanted to be. A wry, pensive, character-driven novel, Landed is Sue’s first novel in decades.

Genres: Book Club

296 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2023

About the author

McCauley, Sue (1941 –), fiction writer, scriptwriter and journalist, was born in Dannevirke, grew up on a farm in rural southern Hawke's Bay and was a boarder at Nelson GC.

She worked as a copywriter and journalist in Napier, Wellington, New Plymouth and Christchurch, beginning her writing career with radio and TV plays and short stories in the 1970s.

Her first novel Other Halves (1982) won both the Wattie Book of the Year Award and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. An autobiographically based account of a relationship between a separated Pakeha mother and a much younger Maori man, it explored ethnic, gender, age and class differences. It has been frequently reprinted, selling more than 20,000 copies, and was made into a feature film.

Her second novel, Then Again (1986), is set on an offshore subtropical island and deals with the increasingly intertwined lives of several residents.

Bad Music (1990) focuses on the relationships between an ageing rock musician, a young woman half his age and the girl’s mother.

A Fancy Man (1996) also involves an apparent mismatch between an older man and a much younger woman.

McCauley’s novels are characterised by a mix of humour, realism and compassion, with strong sympathy for the underdog. She has also written many scripts for film, television and radio and has published numerous short stories. She has worked as a teacher of scriptwriting and fiction and as a judge of story competitions.

She edited (with Richard McLachlan) Erotic Writing (1992), and wrote the text of Escape from Bosnia: Aza’s Story (1996), the narrative being worked up from recorded interviews.

She was writer-in-residence at the universities of Auckland (1986) and Canterbury (1993). After living in various parts of the North Island 1970s–80s she moved with her husband to Christchurch in 1990.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh.

So many feels about this book, in so many ways. I hope I find someone I know that has read this soon, it merits discussion and much love.

Briar is wonderful, she’s insecure, real, loved and loves. Yet she is lonely and not so great at communicating with those closest to her. One by one her closest family peers die. Her children are completely human and witness her coming to terms with mortality, the madness of the 80’s and early 90’s also a degree of healing, awareness and acceptance.

Her relationship with the land, her home and belonging are beautifully written. The awakening to the truth of colonial history vs that of Māori ineptitude is a powerful underpinning to the story arc.

Stunning, I just had to keep reading and now I feel the loss of a tangible connection to everything this story tells.

I have looked up the author and you can feel her wisdom and life experience through out. I’m a little in awe of her tbh.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I connected with Briar, very unexpectedly considering the difference in circumstance. With much of this story, I could hear Sue's voice coming through.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.

[Susan Wilson]

Loved this novel. I just couldn’t but buy this after rereading Other Halves, and really enjoying Sue McCauley’s writing. I appreciated that the central character, Briar, was a complex character who lead me down paths that sometimes came to nothing (like the trip away) though I did feel a sense of doom that she would be duped and would. I heard Sue McCauley says she is interested in characters and issues rather than particularly structured plots. This really works. The story is carried forward because of your access to the way Briar thinks, the things she angsts over, the way she considers her children (not always kindly) and the way her strengths and vulnerabilities and shortcomings are explored. Must admit I did get a surprise when she said “fuck” though perfectly positioned. I also loved that the land almost became one of the characters, and how sense of community can form around that. Wonderful NZ novel with insights on the way NZ changed at the time, not for the better, that doesn’t shy away from sensitive issues including ageism, sexism, and racism.

[Sandra Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Landed is Sue McCauley’s first published book for four decades. It demonstrates she has lost none of the story-telling power of her earlier books, including Other Halves which was made into a film.
The novel examines the life of the main character, Briar, whose husband dies by suicide after a financial disaster, and the lives of her three adult children who live far away in different cities. After her husband’s death, Briar, in her sixties, has to sell her comfortable home and forge a new life for herself in an era where she finds it difficult to cope with the rapid social changes in New Zealand. She discovers secrets about her children’s lives and those closest to her and has to come to terms with this, along with racist attitudes, neo-liberal economic policies, and technological complexities. Her longing to buy her old family farm and return to a safer more predictable past is thwarted by her sister-in-law who sells the land to a wealthy overseas developer. She has to confront betrayal, the death of people she loves, her own advancing old age, and the fact that life is all about change. A thought-provoking and compassionate novel full of insight and wry humour.

[Deb Ingley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really enjoying this book up to a point.

The story begins with Briar finding out that her husband has committed suicide and left her with big debts. She has to sell her large home in Timaru to clear the debts and somehow make a new life for herself. She has an inheritance from her parents that she didn't tell anyone about for some reason so she has some resources. Her 3 children live in Nelson, Wellington and Auckland and she considers moving closer to one of them but none are very encouraging.

We learn more about Briars past in flashbacks. There was a teenage romance resulting in pregnancy, loss of the child, an abusive marriage, departure of the abuser, struggles of a single mother without social welfare, a second marriage and then plain sailing until the unexpected death of her husband. She longs to return to her childhood home on the family farm which is now owned by her brother - his wife hates living there and Briar thinks that she has ruined the house

There is the stock market crash, benefit fraud, racial tensions, loss of aging siblings, a home invasion, the challenges of new technology...

Sue McCauley squeezes a lot into this book!

The story felt pretty authentic up to the point of the dog-on-dog attack. It was very well written and horrifying but what followed just didn't seem credible. A passing driver stops to help her. Briar has reservations about her new friend Aaron, but she feels a strong connection to him. Having just found out the her daughter had been pregnant in the 1970's and given up her son for adoption, she is prepared to assume that Aaron is that long-lost grandson! He encourages her to buy a computer and teaches her how to use it along with internet banking, helping her to create a password.

Low and behold! He turns out to be a gambling addict and steals from her account at the first opportunity. But she doesn't turn him in, still thinking that he is probably her grandson!

I finished the book but I'll leave it there.

This was a book club read and I'm looking forward to hearing what the rest of the group think.

[JanGlen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed it's depiction of 63 year old Briar, newly widowed, trying to make sense of the changing world of NZ in the 1980s, and trying to make a new life for herself. I lapped up her complicated and often unsatisfactory relationship with her grownup children, and her feeling of responsibility for the way their lives had panned out. There was an honesty in the writing. What I didn't enjoy was the way the social commentary overwhelmed the story with unrelenting gloom. 'Progress' as disaster, with no exceptions.

[JeanG · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the first part of this novel, felt it got a little lost in the middle and then it seemed to get back on track again. Although the story line was quite predictable, I did enjoy the author’s depiction of NZ at that time. Her narrative of the aging process and the dilemmas we (as women) face are particularly poignant. Being a Kiwi it is always lovely to read stories of familiar places and atttitudes we see reflected around us. Briar’s pull to her family land and the parallels with Jim and his family’s land were quite thought provoking. All in all I enjoyed it.

[Philippa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5 star read. Certainly Sue McCauley is a deft and fluid writer, with astute insight into human behaviour. A thoughtful and subtle book that doesn't follow a predictable path. I just wanted a bit more power.
Also one small thing that annoyed me was that there was a Briar (the main character) and a Brewer (her husband) - the names were too similar. And I thought Briar was a bit too modern a name for someone born in the 1920s.

[Helen Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved everything about this book especially the characters and the location ie the New Zealand setting especially the South Island and North Canterbury where I grew up. A fantastic read that I couldn’t put down!

[Karen Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't remember when I last read Sue McCauley. This book was a treat, deftly written, gritty and true. The reader feels every emotion.

You feel every part of the predictament Briar finds herself in and all this entails. A real time look at the plight of women.

[Sharon N · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very personal view from an older woman at a time of great change in NZ. Great writing and wonderful characters.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Paul Bowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly loved this. A widow reinventing herself by slow surprising self discovery. The perspective of an aging grandmother is so rarely represented.