The Survivors

by Steve Braunias

True stories of death and desperation


One survivor chooses loneliness.

One chooses exile.

One chooses oblivion.

Some have violent tendencies, ruining lives indiscriminately.

Some seal their own fate in slow motion; others do so in the blink of an eye.

In The Survivors, award-winning true-crime writer Steve Braunias retells twelve mysteries of human nature - unusual stories of how people choose to survive their own lives, and their decisions, desires, impulses... and failings.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Crime

Paperback

About the author

Steven Carl Braunias (born in New Zealand, to an Austrian immigrant father and a New Zealand-born mother) is a New Zealand author, columnist, journalist and editor.

extract from Wikipedia bio

Reviews

[Craig Sisterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last November, Auckland journalist Braunias added to his 50-plus national writing awards by scooping the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Non-Fiction for Missing Persons, a terrific collection of a dozen extraordinary tales of disappearance and death. While Braunias has veered across magazines, newspapers, and books, from arts writing to travel, sports, food, and more, he has a particular knack for ‘court reporting as literature’.

His third and final crime collection, The Survivors, is further evidence of Braunias’s talent and storytelling mastery. From the bookending tales of an itinerant and impoverished old man who’d fled life as a 1970s German intellectual to the senseless violence of two Chinese migrants whose lives are upturned by a misunderstanding, a would-be arsonist who burns himself to death, or a getaway driver for a cop killer, Braunias soaks us in small details and acute observations, providing a window into unseen lives. Not so much the humanity behind headlines, as stories often overlooked.

Despite digging into some extremely dark areas of humanity, including the Holocaust (Braunias grappling with a 42-volume set of Nuremberg trial transcripts), The Survivors never reads as too bleak thanks to Braunias’s masterful writing, and many touches of humanity and light. An act of mercy. A cheerful trolley jockey. The Singing Cowboy.

A superb collection from a superb storyteller.

[This review was originally written for Good Reading magazine]

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of often-overlooked, true crime stories (involving disappearances, death and desperation), told by award-winning New Zealand journalist and novelist, Steve Braunias.

This is a collection of stories, so lacks some cohesion. I appreciate that these stories spanned across various periods of time and involved several stories I had never heard of as an Australian.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad but interesting collection of real crime stories from New Zealand. Braunias takes an interesting approach to storytelling here, thinking about what these stories tell us about what it takes to survive your life. This has the effect of being sometimes uncomfortably humanising, at others, relentlessly bleak, and at others again hopeful. It’s a gritty picture of New Zealand society, one which it would be easy to look away from. Very interesting, and well-told.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars!

This completes Braunias’s crime trilogy and there’s some cracking stories in here, as he investigates a number of Kiwi related murders, mysteries and other mayhem. There’s the reclusive German enigma who went by the name of Volker Pilgrim, incredibly wealthy and successful in his native Deutschland but who had many secrets he wished to bury by the time he washed up on the shores of NZ.

Then there’s the case of the Holocaust survivor and the complete 42 volume set of the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, Jock “the Singing Cowboy” Hume who has earned a reputation, this in spite of suffering from schizophrenia all of his adult life. Stephen Ewart The so called Innocent Agent – who got caught up in someone else’s dark machinations.

This also shows how too often that still the public must suffer the consequences of poor, lazy work by mediocre or not very bright policemen, which too often leads to innocent people’s lives being destroyed. We see that ignorance, indifference, racism and laziness led to Riwander Singh being put on remand for six months without so much as an apology and the woman who made the serious accusations and lies against him was allowed to remain free without a stain on her character and then free to go onto to commit an even worse crime.

One peculiar and frustrating oversight on Braunias’s part is how often he chooses not to tell you what the actual sentence passed was on the guilty parties in these accounts, but that's only a solitary wasp at an otherwise enjoyable picnic. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read and a nice way to finish off the trilogy.

[Fran Whiteman]

Some interesting New Zealand controversial stories & some that didn’t interest me.
Audiobook version, worth a listen

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I've loved reading Braunias' Polkinghorne trial columns and was hoping this book was going to be just more of that. And indeed, the chapters that were covering court cases were 10/10. But there were just too many chapters about a strange collection of random people that I couldn't pretend to care about.

[Klaas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still my favourite NZ non-fiction writer. A continuation of heartfelt dramatic life stories, just as good as previous books The Scene of the Crime and Missing Persons.

[Xanthi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook format.
I was pleased that I hadn’t heard of many of these true stories before. Some were true crime, some missing person, and some altogether something different. Some were modern day, whilst others from the 1920s or post WW2.
Unfortunately I didn’t feel these various stories gelled. I thought the theme of the book was way too loose to clump these stories together, so I felt it rather jarring when one ended and another began.

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an Australian, I wasn't familiar with any of the NZ stories in this book, and it was an interesting although somewhat odd collection, loosely under the broad theme of survivors or survival. I always find the style of writing in these newspaper-feature stories also somewhat odd, where the author mentions he was served a plate of chocolate biscuits or other irrelevant asides and is a character in the story.

[Stephen McNeill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to like this book, mainly because I had a negative image of the author. Completely irrational, as it turns out. The book is fabulous writing with language as smooth as silk. The book is a collection of unrelated stories about people that we dismiss from a news column: a loner, an intellectually handicapped person, an accused in the dock. All are brought to life, without hagiography or (too much) judgement.

Read it!

[Bronwyn Hegarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

several interesting and variably disturbing true-life stories in this collection. Steve has interviewed many eccentric and quirky people to get to the facts. The research is thorough and the writing superb. It took me a while to get used to his casual narration style but it works for these varied stories about peoples' not-your-'normal' lives. Enjoyed this as it was different to the usual type of thing I read.

[Scott Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read on varied and really engaging topics. The content is a little bleak, and unpredictable with how each story is told, which works. Braunias is a wonderful writer. His POV is sharp and as poignant as always, made all the more so when it’s in your backyard. He doesn’t pull any punches. A great read.

[Stephanie Roberson · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times heartbreaking. I have always enjoyed Steve Beaunias' writing style in his columns, but this is my first time reading a book of his. A couple of real gut-punch moments.

[JANE YATES · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly enjoyed the story of the singing cowboy - beautiful.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Helen Cummings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from Steve Braunias. The survivor stories were on the whole rather sad but engendered by Steve’s ironic wit and turn of phrase.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last in the trilogy. This was another solid book with many in-depth retellings of crimes from around New Zealand and some lesser known cases.