Among the Cinders

by Maurice Shadbolt

A New Zealand teen goes hiking with his grandfather and has an affair with an older woman.

Genres: Fiction

301 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Maurice Shadbolt was a major New Zealand fiction writer and playwright. He published numerous novels and collections of short fiction, as well as novellas, non-fiction, and a play. His writing often drew on his own family history. Shadbolt won several fellowships and almost every major literary prize, some more than once. He was capped Honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Auckland in 1997.

Reviews

[I · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is not an easy to understand book, and there are not many Women's Book Clubs that would chose it as their Book of the Week, but it is definitely worth your time.

You have to paint the full picture from just one perspective, and that is not easy. Just let your imagination roam, that is what books are for!

First and foremost this is a book about family and parenting, so the two hardest, most complex, and most difficult human jobs/task/enterprises ever attempted.

That makes it one of the most important books to read now, because at no time before in history has mankind failed so terribly and so globally at those two tasks.

[Sharon Zink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't see the point of this book. A kid from New Zealand goes camping with his buddy, and the buddy falls down a cliff and gets killed. Then the kid runs away to his grandparents' place, and he and the grandfather run off into the bush with no one's knowledge. The police catch the kid and bring him home. A year later he retraces the trip he took with his dead buddy and finds a potty chair in an abandoned house. He had seen the potty chair the year before and left it. This time he takes it with him and hides it in a cave and plants wild flowers in it. So what? Not so exciting.

[Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is awesome. Great characters, especially the narrator and his Grandad. Hubert Cinders drops into the story like a bomb and doesn't disappoint throughout. Maurice Shadbolt's narrator Nick is compelling and refreshing for an adolescent character. Hard not to give this a five stars but the book somewhat slows at the end. Loved how everyone gets roasted in this book.

[Marilyn Saul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Three hundred pages of pubescent boy angst, sexual violence, pettiness, self-adulation was more than I could take, though I made it through this dreadful book. Enough said.

[Donald Schopflocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a youth suffers a tragic loss, he travels across the North Island of New Zealand with his grandfather, growing and healing along the way. A coming of age novel set against the rugged New Zealand bush and the unique culturescape of mid century rural life.

[Edward Sargisson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different from the film.