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On an Island, with Consequences Dire
254 pages
First published January 1, 2007
21 people want to read
About the author
Kelly Ana Morey
7 books9 followersKelly Ana Morey (born 1968) is a novelist and poet from New Zealand.
She grew up in New Guinea & currently lives in Kaipara
extract from Wikipedia
She grew up in New Guinea & currently lives in Kaipara
extract from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 28, 2017
One of the several things Kelly Ana Morey does really well is to write broken people – not shattered, but if they were plates they’d chipped, cracked or broken and stuck back together without being properly aligned with some kind of powerful glue. Each of the central characters in this novel of death, depression and not-quite-rightness is one of these forms of broken – but it is neither glum nor bleak, in part because we know from the outset how it ends, we think. (We’re not too far off the mark though.)
At the centre are three friends – Georgia (the narrator), Kate (her best buddy from birth, a few days apart), and Bride (who arrives in their lives when they are all ten, although Bride is a few months older). If the three women-who-resemble-sisters in a tragedy (as we know from the outset) was not enough to make me think of King Lear then just before the summer where it all goes wrong Reagan arrives as the catalyst. So, OK, Reagan is a bloke but it wasn’t enough to unsettle my deep-seated archetype. What’s more, when it goes wrong it goes spectacularly irredeemably wrong – there is no sense of a new awareness and redemption brought about the pure and loyal daughter here (the Lear association only goes so far and was no doubt strained to start with).
Morey’s other great skill is to keep me engaged in a narrative that deal with four such unlikeable characters, although she only lets the actual degree of unlikeableness seep out as the story emerges, with its movement back and forth between teenage years on an ‘island’ off the Northland (New Zealand) coast – we can locate the place around the Rangaunu Harbour (unlikely) or more likely Doubtless Bay or the Karikari Peninsula – although the area is sufficiently rearranged for this to be my limit; other than high profile places such as Spirit’s Bay and Rangiatea, the only specific place name is the impossible Kaleponia on p 67 (Maori has no ‘l’ sound – it is Kareponia – a Ngai Takoto marae on Rangaunu, but I quibble in a geek-like manner).
By the time we get to the story, Georgia has moved south to the Kaipara Harbour (I take it, by her description) and on 16 years or so from the summer where it all went wrong and, as she tell us on the first page, she killed Bride Te Paa. This is novel of the consequences of that death that can only lead to its occurrence; from the outset we know what and who, the thing to be explained is the why. This ‘why’ also turns out to be utterly banal, making it all the more likely and believable. It is, therefore, a novel of character development – close to the inversion of a classic bildungsroman, in that there is no sense of developing good character and growth to redemption, but the characters of Kate, Bride and Georgia emerging from the developing narrative with Reagan acting as the catalyst for the interaction of these emerging fairly unlikeable characters. Bride is dead, but emerges as egocentric, selfish and pretty nasty; Kate an obsessive control freak (also egocentric and selfish), and Georgia managing her depression by on-line shopping for outrageous shoes – with a focus on Marc Jacobs (depressive she may be, but she’s got good taste!).
Morey made me care about these women and what happened to them in ways she hadn’t really achieved in her previous two novels, and kept me reading as things developed. Enjoyable – not so much, but it is a damn good yarn that I recognised (it helped to know the place adapted for its setting) but that was far enough away from my life to be not-of-me; this is, after all, the point of fiction. And the ending is fabulously, over-the-top gory – making it (bizarrely) all the more uncomfortably realistic.
At the centre are three friends – Georgia (the narrator), Kate (her best buddy from birth, a few days apart), and Bride (who arrives in their lives when they are all ten, although Bride is a few months older). If the three women-who-resemble-sisters in a tragedy (as we know from the outset) was not enough to make me think of King Lear then just before the summer where it all goes wrong Reagan arrives as the catalyst. So, OK, Reagan is a bloke but it wasn’t enough to unsettle my deep-seated archetype. What’s more, when it goes wrong it goes spectacularly irredeemably wrong – there is no sense of a new awareness and redemption brought about the pure and loyal daughter here (the Lear association only goes so far and was no doubt strained to start with).
Morey’s other great skill is to keep me engaged in a narrative that deal with four such unlikeable characters, although she only lets the actual degree of unlikeableness seep out as the story emerges, with its movement back and forth between teenage years on an ‘island’ off the Northland (New Zealand) coast – we can locate the place around the Rangaunu Harbour (unlikely) or more likely Doubtless Bay or the Karikari Peninsula – although the area is sufficiently rearranged for this to be my limit; other than high profile places such as Spirit’s Bay and Rangiatea, the only specific place name is the impossible Kaleponia on p 67 (Maori has no ‘l’ sound – it is Kareponia – a Ngai Takoto marae on Rangaunu, but I quibble in a geek-like manner).
By the time we get to the story, Georgia has moved south to the Kaipara Harbour (I take it, by her description) and on 16 years or so from the summer where it all went wrong and, as she tell us on the first page, she killed Bride Te Paa. This is novel of the consequences of that death that can only lead to its occurrence; from the outset we know what and who, the thing to be explained is the why. This ‘why’ also turns out to be utterly banal, making it all the more likely and believable. It is, therefore, a novel of character development – close to the inversion of a classic bildungsroman, in that there is no sense of developing good character and growth to redemption, but the characters of Kate, Bride and Georgia emerging from the developing narrative with Reagan acting as the catalyst for the interaction of these emerging fairly unlikeable characters. Bride is dead, but emerges as egocentric, selfish and pretty nasty; Kate an obsessive control freak (also egocentric and selfish), and Georgia managing her depression by on-line shopping for outrageous shoes – with a focus on Marc Jacobs (depressive she may be, but she’s got good taste!).
Morey made me care about these women and what happened to them in ways she hadn’t really achieved in her previous two novels, and kept me reading as things developed. Enjoyable – not so much, but it is a damn good yarn that I recognised (it helped to know the place adapted for its setting) but that was far enough away from my life to be not-of-me; this is, after all, the point of fiction. And the ending is fabulously, over-the-top gory – making it (bizarrely) all the more uncomfortably realistic.
September 6, 2025
Still my favourite book from this much underrated writer.
I reckon Polly Jean Harvey, Shirley Manson, Bjork and Kristin Hersh would all love this book. It just has a vibe that speaks to women of that age.
I reckon Polly Jean Harvey, Shirley Manson, Bjork and Kristin Hersh would all love this book. It just has a vibe that speaks to women of that age.
August 2, 2011
I love this book!! The first time I read it, I just kept going until it was finished, I read it all in one day, which as much as I love to read is not my normal way of doing things. Spiritual, dark, Kiwi... some of my favourite things
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April 10, 2020Quarter of the way in and it is just meandering too much for me. I understand it is meant to build anticipation but it’s not working.
September 19, 2020
Rather a dark read that kept me reading until the very end.I enjoyed the obsessive online shopping of designer shoes!
March 31, 2008
I liked the way the crime in this book was explicit from the beginning, and reasons or motives didn't come clear until the end. I liked the mix of Marc Jacobs ballet flats with Maori kehua or ghosts.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews