Finding out

by Elspeth Sandys

It’s the early 1950s. Knox Bay, a remote township in southern New Zealand, is home to a community scarred by war and the long Depression that preceded it. A once thriving port, steeped in the puritan tradition, its mudflats are littered with wreckage and debris, while the hills, dotted with abandoned farmhouses, bear the scars of erosion and human failure.Jennie and Mary, daughters of the township, are on the edge of puberty. Left to range freely over the Bay’s open spaces, they create a world for themselves that will bring them into conflict with the beliefs and customs of the community. With the arrival in their midst of an ‘outsider’ - Tom Matheson, the new school teacher - a collision course is set. As the story moves to its shocking conclusion, the girls ‘find out’ about madness, sexuality, lies, and love, while Tom, the catalyst for these events, is forced to acknowledge not just the community’s blindness, but his own.

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991