Sam Hunt

by Colin Hogg

An off-the-road biography of New Zealand's best-known poetThirty years after Hogg and Hunt collaborated on the now-legendary Angel On the Road with Sam Hunt, the pair have decided to throw caution to the wind and proceed without doctors' certificates, to create an older, possibly wiser twin to that earlier book.A backstage pass to the private side of one of our most public people, Sam Off the Road is a wild, hilarious, no-holds-barred book about the non-stop life and poems of a man New Zealand thinks it knows, until now.Part conversation, part story-telling, part poems, it's also a book about friendship, solitude, love, death, self-destruction and endurance. With photographs and poems, some old, some new.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2018

About the author

After many years as a journalist in newspapers (Southland Times, NZ Herald, Auckland Star), Colin Hogg moved into television, where he has mainly worked as a writer and producer on documentary and arts programmes. He was also a regular panelist for two seasons on TV ONE’s nightly advice show, How’s Life?.

Away from television, Hogg is a long-term magazine columnist and has written seven books on topics as various as adultery, cinema and himself.

Reviews

[Daniel Headifen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw Sam live at least three times. Once at school and once at orientation at Uni. Maybe in first year. But best was at the Back Bencher pub with long past friend Simon Hann. Sam was accompanying the Waratahs. By himself he was good but then he did poems while they played music. Simon turned to me and said “this is amazing”. Which it was. Enjoyed the book far more than I thought. Not every poem but lots of them. He’s old and getting isolated but still interesting. Brought at a Newton second hand book store after C played tennis in town.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly lazy 'update' of Angel Gear that is basically some borrowed-from-there chapters and transcribed Q&A - it's like a podcast-as-book and though it's lazy and not needed there is some charm to it in places. But it's beyond lightweight. It's like a eulogy ahead of time. And a pretty half-arsed one.

[Alex Devine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5