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Stonedogs
Deutz Medal winner 2002.
375 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
8 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Craig Marriner
3 books2 followersCraig Marriner was born in New Zealand in 1974. He was raised & schooled in Rotorua.
In the days since, he has mined gold in the Aussie Outback, worked security at English soccer stadiums, wintered on a angry Ruapehu, MCed at an Amsterdam comedy club, haggled in the markets of Istanbul & slept in more train stations than he cares to remember.
His first published novel was the award winning Stonedogs. His second novel Southern Style was released in 2006.
In the days since, he has mined gold in the Aussie Outback, worked security at English soccer stadiums, wintered on a angry Ruapehu, MCed at an Amsterdam comedy club, haggled in the markets of Istanbul & slept in more train stations than he cares to remember.
His first published novel was the award winning Stonedogs. His second novel Southern Style was released in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 20, 2019
4.5★
Wow, this book is one wild ride!
Normally, this wouldn't be my sort of read at all! This book is violent - very violent - & there is frequent use of my least favourite word in the English language. This book ended up on one of my to-read lists after reading literary snob Graeme Lay's snooty article about the author. (see my review of The Scene of the Crime if you want the link to the article & to read the discussion in my comments section).
This novel was a controversial winner of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (now known as the Ockham's) One of the many things I've always liked about the NZ Awards is that they are - quirky. Expect the unexpected. The Luminaries didn't win the overall award, the judges often seem to follow their own drum. (although the selection committee can be depressingly predictable)
So the judges went for a raw, fresh talent who spoke Kiwi as she is spoken! Gator & his friends just jumped off the page at me. These blokes aren't wholly admirable, but they aren't complete villains either. Marriner has enough writing skills to show that both he & Gator don't share the misogynist characteristics of many of the denizens of Roto-Vegas.ϟ (Affectionate nickname for tourist town Rotorua - although even now it still has quite a bleak underbelly) Most of the book's pace was fast & furious, other than an occasional philosophical detour. To be honest, I skimmed most of those. Marriner is a very intelligent man, but I felt these excursions gave the book some pacing problems. For foreign readers & nowadays ( & even some Kiwis) some mentions may have readers scratching their heads - for example Jim Hickey, a TV weatherman of the time.
But if you can get hold of this story of a road-trip through a group of Kiwi dole bludgers lurching into a world of crime, this is well worth reading. Some of the twists and turns really surprised me!
Marriner wrote another book Southern Style in 2006. Rumour has it that a third novel will be coming soon. I hope so. I would love to see what direction his writing has taken in middle age.
ϟ Other cities - if Kiwis can give something a nickname, or better still abbreviate, we will!
Auckland = The Big Smoke (Called The Smoke by Marriner though - probably to distinguish from the many, many other cities that have this nick))
Hamilton = The 'Tron
Wellington = Wellywood
Dunedin = Dunners
Gisborne = Gizzy
Palmerston North = Palmy or Balmy Palmy
Whangarei = FUNgarei
Thames= The Thames - well when it is just one syllable, of course you have to make the name longer!
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
Wow, this book is one wild ride!
Normally, this wouldn't be my sort of read at all! This book is violent - very violent - & there is frequent use of my least favourite word in the English language. This book ended up on one of my to-read lists after reading literary snob Graeme Lay's snooty article about the author. (see my review of The Scene of the Crime if you want the link to the article & to read the discussion in my comments section).
This novel was a controversial winner of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (now known as the Ockham's) One of the many things I've always liked about the NZ Awards is that they are - quirky. Expect the unexpected. The Luminaries didn't win the overall award, the judges often seem to follow their own drum. (although the selection committee can be depressingly predictable)
So the judges went for a raw, fresh talent who spoke Kiwi as she is spoken! Gator & his friends just jumped off the page at me. These blokes aren't wholly admirable, but they aren't complete villains either. Marriner has enough writing skills to show that both he & Gator don't share the misogynist characteristics of many of the denizens of Roto-Vegas.ϟ (Affectionate nickname for tourist town Rotorua - although even now it still has quite a bleak underbelly) Most of the book's pace was fast & furious, other than an occasional philosophical detour. To be honest, I skimmed most of those. Marriner is a very intelligent man, but I felt these excursions gave the book some pacing problems. For foreign readers & nowadays ( & even some Kiwis) some mentions may have readers scratching their heads - for example Jim Hickey, a TV weatherman of the time.
But if you can get hold of this story of a road-trip through a group of Kiwi dole bludgers lurching into a world of crime, this is well worth reading. Some of the twists and turns really surprised me!
Marriner wrote another book Southern Style in 2006. Rumour has it that a third novel will be coming soon. I hope so. I would love to see what direction his writing has taken in middle age.
ϟ Other cities - if Kiwis can give something a nickname, or better still abbreviate, we will!
Auckland = The Big Smoke (Called The Smoke by Marriner though - probably to distinguish from the many, many other cities that have this nick))
Hamilton = The 'Tron
Wellington = Wellywood
Dunedin = Dunners
Gisborne = Gizzy
Palmerston North = Palmy or Balmy Palmy
Whangarei = FUNgarei
Thames= The Thames - well when it is just one syllable, of course you have to make the name longer!
https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...
July 18, 2021
A novel that exposes the underbelly of society in new Zealand not seen by the casual visitor, or by many who live a sheltered, well off life.
Craig Marriner won the fiction category of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2002 (Montana Book Awards at the time) for this - his first publication. More importantly, he upset the establishment of NZ authors by being 'an outsider'. He didn't come from university, he didn't graduate from creative writing courses, and the author snobs bagged him. Great example here, with a very good postscript by Steve Braunias.
Referred to, for publicity purposes, as New Zealand's answer to Irvine Welsh and Quentin Tarantino, there are perhaps some parallels. Like Welsh, Marriner uses dialect for many of the conversations (a raw Maori pronunciation which takes some adjusting to, and may trouble international readers who are not familiar with the 'lazy' pronunciation we Kiwi's often fall victim to); he embraces the violence and the drug abuse that Welsh and Tarantino often glorify; he also has a go at the big picture philosophy that Welsh in particular captures so well without lecturing (Marriner in far less successful, as I note further below). Marriner and Welsh also both capture the underclass, where perhaps Scotland and New Zealand have something in common, but something very different from each other. Then there is, of course, the dark humour present in all three, although for me Tarantino operates in a space much further from the gritty realities of life, where he pushes way beyond the realms of possibility, and is therefore much safer than the other two. I guess the more I examine the parallels, the more I can by into them.
The other obvious take away from this book is Marriner's inclusion of so many contemporary New Zealand references and colloquialisms - perhaps a trap for young authors. While this can produce a very contemporary book, it tends to date a book also - a toss-up perhaps as to whether this is worthwhile? These will almost all mean nothing to either international readers, or local readers who were not aware of NZ society for, say, the 5 years prior to publication (mid 90's to 2000). Similarly, without some understanding of small-city NZ, some of the events might seem odd or ill-explained.
There a a few flaws in the book. I consider he didn't differentiate the characters enough, with speech mannerisms etc, and even one of the police used the same slang term, which came across as sloppy (this is probably something the editor should have resolved). Then there were the philosophical interludes - these just read like the author wanted to show off, or prove his intelligence, but really they just interrupted the flow of the narrative. I largely skipped over these, and feel they would have been best left out completely, saving 20 or so pages in this book. It perhaps suffers also from being a first novel, in that the author wanted to put all his ideas into it - some could have been pared back a little.
Then, in balance there were some good aspects. I liked that Marriner resisted the fairy-tale ending (enough said, no spoilers). I also liked that the reader had to work to understand some aspects of the story. A couple of times I realised something important had happened, but I had missed the pertinent feature, so had to skip back a page; there were some important details which were only mentioned in passing, but came home to roost later in the book. It was cleverly done. There remains one detail I did not figure out, but no doubt it is mentioned in the earlier narrative somewhere. The last few chapters jump around a lot, and it is not a novel to finish in a rush, it takes a little unpicking.
I own a copy of Marriner's second novel - I actually bought it before I bought this one, but wanted to read them in publication order. While it received far less acclaim than this one, I will read it in due course.
I recommend this with some hesitancy, as a reader would need to cope with the con's mentioned above to benefit from the pro's.
For me it is a 4 star read, impressive for a first novel.
Craig Marriner won the fiction category of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in 2002 (Montana Book Awards at the time) for this - his first publication. More importantly, he upset the establishment of NZ authors by being 'an outsider'. He didn't come from university, he didn't graduate from creative writing courses, and the author snobs bagged him. Great example here, with a very good postscript by Steve Braunias.
Referred to, for publicity purposes, as New Zealand's answer to Irvine Welsh and Quentin Tarantino, there are perhaps some parallels. Like Welsh, Marriner uses dialect for many of the conversations (a raw Maori pronunciation which takes some adjusting to, and may trouble international readers who are not familiar with the 'lazy' pronunciation we Kiwi's often fall victim to); he embraces the violence and the drug abuse that Welsh and Tarantino often glorify; he also has a go at the big picture philosophy that Welsh in particular captures so well without lecturing (Marriner in far less successful, as I note further below). Marriner and Welsh also both capture the underclass, where perhaps Scotland and New Zealand have something in common, but something very different from each other. Then there is, of course, the dark humour present in all three, although for me Tarantino operates in a space much further from the gritty realities of life, where he pushes way beyond the realms of possibility, and is therefore much safer than the other two. I guess the more I examine the parallels, the more I can by into them.
The other obvious take away from this book is Marriner's inclusion of so many contemporary New Zealand references and colloquialisms - perhaps a trap for young authors. While this can produce a very contemporary book, it tends to date a book also - a toss-up perhaps as to whether this is worthwhile? These will almost all mean nothing to either international readers, or local readers who were not aware of NZ society for, say, the 5 years prior to publication (mid 90's to 2000). Similarly, without some understanding of small-city NZ, some of the events might seem odd or ill-explained.
There a a few flaws in the book. I consider he didn't differentiate the characters enough, with speech mannerisms etc, and even one of the police used the same slang term, which came across as sloppy (this is probably something the editor should have resolved). Then there were the philosophical interludes - these just read like the author wanted to show off, or prove his intelligence, but really they just interrupted the flow of the narrative. I largely skipped over these, and feel they would have been best left out completely, saving 20 or so pages in this book. It perhaps suffers also from being a first novel, in that the author wanted to put all his ideas into it - some could have been pared back a little.
Then, in balance there were some good aspects. I liked that Marriner resisted the fairy-tale ending (enough said, no spoilers). I also liked that the reader had to work to understand some aspects of the story. A couple of times I realised something important had happened, but I had missed the pertinent feature, so had to skip back a page; there were some important details which were only mentioned in passing, but came home to roost later in the book. It was cleverly done. There remains one detail I did not figure out, but no doubt it is mentioned in the earlier narrative somewhere. The last few chapters jump around a lot, and it is not a novel to finish in a rush, it takes a little unpicking.
I own a copy of Marriner's second novel - I actually bought it before I bought this one, but wanted to read them in publication order. While it received far less acclaim than this one, I will read it in due course.
I recommend this with some hesitancy, as a reader would need to cope with the con's mentioned above to benefit from the pro's.
For me it is a 4 star read, impressive for a first novel.
May 21, 2019
3.5 Stars!
“This is actually happening! We are actually at the centre of a crime that’s gonna occupy headlines for weeks! And you’re still playing fucking brotherhoods? No one’s got any irony in their voice any more, Gator.”
I can’t help but notice how often publishers love to compare almost any white working class author who writes about sex, drugs or violence to Irvine Welsh. Maybe this is partly because so much of the publishing industry is awash with middle/upper class people who believe that anyone who doesn’t write like the bourgeoisie/Oxbridge/Ivy League/Jewish writers (delete as appropriate), they can relate to, so they make the lazy and tenuous link to Welsh.
“Queue here for signing in and the surgical removal of another eight hours of the prime of your life.”
It took me a little while to get into this, to find my way into his style of writing, but once I got a grasp of the vernacular I began to get a lot more out of it. Marriner writes about slackers, stoners and gang members but there is also more to it than that. Strong anti-capitalist/anti-neo-liberalist themes begin to come through.
These characters are the legacy of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia. The people left to pick up the tab whilst the elites concentrate on taking more from those who have less. A bit like “Once Were Warriors” this is the NZ you don’t see on the brochure, under the banner of 100% Pure. There is no talk of hobbits or Lord of The Rings in here, this is the Aotearoa of bikers, drug abuse, domestic violence and murder. This is a gritty, funny, sharp and confronting read that is certainly worth a read.
January 12, 2010
Dark, violent and fast paced, unfortunately a reasonably accurate account of the under side of New Zealand. This is one of those books you can't put down it becomes imperative you discover the outcome. The content is not always pleasant but works in the whole scheme of things.
It was highly acclaimed when it was published and I can see why.
It was highly acclaimed when it was published and I can see why.
August 17, 2018
Straight outta Rotovegas!
September 10, 2019
Woah.
December 1, 2009
Sometimes you pick up a book, start reading, and instantly start wondering what on earth is going on. Yet for some reason, you cannot put the darn thing down. That's exactly what happened for me with STONEDOGS. Mind you, if I'd have read the blurb that states that Craig Marriner is New Zealand's answer to Irvine Welsh and Quentin Tarantino, I probably could have recognised a hint about what I was in for.
STONEDOGS isn't a recent book - it won the Montana New Zealand Book Award Deutz Medal in 2002, but it is a book that was recently bought to my attention by a correspondent on my website. Boy am I pleased about that pointer, otherwise I might have missed reading this completely.
Not that STONEDOGS is a particularly easy or pleasant read. The book is manic, rapidfire, and insane at points. Basically you've got a small group of teeanagers - the Brotherhood, waging the holiest of wars. Against something. Or somebody. Not sure. But they are a bunch of kids who stick together through drug deals, binge-drinking, abortive attempts to pick up girls (and not so abortive attempts for some of them), reckless driving and street fights. At heart, a bunch of fun-seeking young lads, there's a closeness and a supportiveness in this little band that just makes them so likeable - even though you have to scrape through a fair amount of trash talk and faux toughness to get to the reality. But as in so many of these coming of age type tales, things go awry and revenge takes over and the journey gets mad, bad and very dangerous.
Undoubtedly cringe inducing, STONEDOGS will also have you laughing out loud. As well as feeling vaguely reassured that whilst the language may change, and perhaps there's a tighter, tougher, slightly more dangerous edge to some of the activities, teenagers, basically haven't changed that much. Or at least they are still recognisable. As are the bonds of friendship, the lunacy of risk taking, the rites of passage.
I definitely had no idea what was going on at points in this book, but I also found I simply could not put it down. Dark, violent, very in your face, this isn't going to be a book for everybody. But for anybody who does pick it up - I think I can guarantee it will stay with you for quite a while.
STONEDOGS isn't a recent book - it won the Montana New Zealand Book Award Deutz Medal in 2002, but it is a book that was recently bought to my attention by a correspondent on my website. Boy am I pleased about that pointer, otherwise I might have missed reading this completely.
Not that STONEDOGS is a particularly easy or pleasant read. The book is manic, rapidfire, and insane at points. Basically you've got a small group of teeanagers - the Brotherhood, waging the holiest of wars. Against something. Or somebody. Not sure. But they are a bunch of kids who stick together through drug deals, binge-drinking, abortive attempts to pick up girls (and not so abortive attempts for some of them), reckless driving and street fights. At heart, a bunch of fun-seeking young lads, there's a closeness and a supportiveness in this little band that just makes them so likeable - even though you have to scrape through a fair amount of trash talk and faux toughness to get to the reality. But as in so many of these coming of age type tales, things go awry and revenge takes over and the journey gets mad, bad and very dangerous.
Undoubtedly cringe inducing, STONEDOGS will also have you laughing out loud. As well as feeling vaguely reassured that whilst the language may change, and perhaps there's a tighter, tougher, slightly more dangerous edge to some of the activities, teenagers, basically haven't changed that much. Or at least they are still recognisable. As are the bonds of friendship, the lunacy of risk taking, the rites of passage.
I definitely had no idea what was going on at points in this book, but I also found I simply could not put it down. Dark, violent, very in your face, this isn't going to be a book for everybody. But for anybody who does pick it up - I think I can guarantee it will stay with you for quite a while.
May 9, 2014
The promotional material for this book does a shitty job selling it. I understand why, it's meant to be marketed most likely to 20 something guys, but I think it's a mistake (even though they're probably the target audience).
If you are a non-Kiwi, the slang comes fast and heavy and Google and Urban Dictionary are definitely going to be your friends when you read this book, just in order to get some of the more arcane slang (there is a LOT of bizarre slang). Still, go ahead and google EVERYTHING you're not clear on and it will help out a lot.
Set in Rotorua (aka Roto-Vegas), a tourist destination on the North Island of New Zealand, it's a story about a group of guys led by Gator, a smart young man with an anti-capitalist philosophy and a frankly tiresome drive to spread it, and his pals. The book starts off and you're not sure where it's going, and the language, being full of slang, and dialect, can be dense and confusing at first, but about 1/3 of the way in, the action starts to happen, and then all of a sudden things get fast-paced, fun, and full of action.
I could see this becoming a movie. The comparisons to Irving Welsh and Quentin Tarantino are not TERRIBLE, persay, because it does have that gritty hipness to it and as a crime-ish novel you can see where the descriptors are going, but it does have its own voice, and specifically it's really delightful to get a glimpse into the Maori vs white dudes (ballheads) gang politics. It made me really want to learn more about some of the more subtle social interactions in New Zealand (as an American, it's not going to happen, but if anyone has any recommendations, let me know).
It's fun. Great for young dudes, but don't write it off just because it's kind of a bro-book, it's surprisingly entertaining, and I think a bit of an undiscovered gem here in the States.
If you are a non-Kiwi, the slang comes fast and heavy and Google and Urban Dictionary are definitely going to be your friends when you read this book, just in order to get some of the more arcane slang (there is a LOT of bizarre slang). Still, go ahead and google EVERYTHING you're not clear on and it will help out a lot.
Set in Rotorua (aka Roto-Vegas), a tourist destination on the North Island of New Zealand, it's a story about a group of guys led by Gator, a smart young man with an anti-capitalist philosophy and a frankly tiresome drive to spread it, and his pals. The book starts off and you're not sure where it's going, and the language, being full of slang, and dialect, can be dense and confusing at first, but about 1/3 of the way in, the action starts to happen, and then all of a sudden things get fast-paced, fun, and full of action.
I could see this becoming a movie. The comparisons to Irving Welsh and Quentin Tarantino are not TERRIBLE, persay, because it does have that gritty hipness to it and as a crime-ish novel you can see where the descriptors are going, but it does have its own voice, and specifically it's really delightful to get a glimpse into the Maori vs white dudes (ballheads) gang politics. It made me really want to learn more about some of the more subtle social interactions in New Zealand (as an American, it's not going to happen, but if anyone has any recommendations, let me know).
It's fun. Great for young dudes, but don't write it off just because it's kind of a bro-book, it's surprisingly entertaining, and I think a bit of an undiscovered gem here in the States.
November 20, 2016
The Irvine Welsh comparison is apt in that there's the use of slang, phonetic spelling, drugs, and violence. However, I wouldn't say this was quite like a Welsh novel, nor of the same quality (I'm a huge Welsh fan so my opinion is definitely biased). I enjoyed it but I have some qualms with it--one being that the characters in it are all so *likable* and when the time comes for these characters to make some ugly choices, the story becomes a little unreasonable. Additionally, many chapters are overly long and there's even one section used to build a romance that goes on for maybe 30 pages and then is completely dropped. We never return to it and it seems to have served almost no purpose. On top of that, while Welsh often has a heist or scheme somewhere in his books, they're rarely the basis for the entire book, and STONEDOGS is almost entirely about the heist. It is split up with some pot-infused philosophizing on politics, social norms, equality, and the like, but even those sections seem to kind of fade away by the book's conclusion.
In the end, I think this was a well-written, interesting book, but it just didn't entirely work for me. I can see others really loving this book, however.
In the end, I think this was a well-written, interesting book, but it just didn't entirely work for me. I can see others really loving this book, however.
October 17, 2013
This is a historical review as I recently had the book returned from a long lost loan. I loved this book so much when I read it probably 10 years ago and can't quite work out how it hasn't been made into a film (it would be very Once Were Warriors but from a different perspective). It tells the tale of a brilliant young pakeha male growing up in Rotorua who falls in with a bad lot. It's gritty and grim but feels very realistic. A bit like the brilliant TV series of Oscar Knightly called Harry which recently screened.
March 2, 2011
A little bizarre at times, but a great read none-the-less that was hard to put down. A very dark novel about gangs and drug culture in New Zealand; a similar setting to Once Were Warriors. It contained a lot of colloquialisms and slang that I think a non New Zealander may struggle to follow.
August 9, 2013
Visceral testosterone filled stuff. A gritty tale of gang and drug life in NZ. The narrator has a laconic quasi intellectual voice. A group of best mates get into way to much trouble when they take on a local gang.
October 23, 2008
Gritty, savage, page-turner.
Read
August 9, 2011Started well but was ultimately an amatuerish attempt at writing a novel, a Kiwi boys own fantasy.
April 9, 2012
Just couldn't get into this. Another time perhaps.
May 24, 2015
for a 1st novel this is inspirational
Read
April 25, 2009Just wasn't in the right mood for this one. Next time Craig.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews