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Memory Pieces
Memory Pieces is an intimate and evocative memoir in three parts.
‘Double Unit’ tells the story of Maurice Gee’s parents – Lyndahl Chapple Gee, a talented writer who for reasons that become clear never went on with a writing career, and Len Gee, a boxer, builder, and man’s man.
‘Blind Road’ is Gee’s story up to the age of eighteen, when his apprenticeship as a writer began.
‘Running on the Stairs’ tells the story of Margaretha Garden, beginning in 1940, the year of her birth, when she travelled with her mother Greta from Nazi-sympathising Sweden to New Zealand, through to her meeting Maurice Gee when they were working together in the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1967.
‘Double Unit’ tells the story of Maurice Gee’s parents – Lyndahl Chapple Gee, a talented writer who for reasons that become clear never went on with a writing career, and Len Gee, a boxer, builder, and man’s man.
‘Blind Road’ is Gee’s story up to the age of eighteen, when his apprenticeship as a writer began.
‘Running on the Stairs’ tells the story of Margaretha Garden, beginning in 1940, the year of her birth, when she travelled with her mother Greta from Nazi-sympathising Sweden to New Zealand, through to her meeting Maurice Gee when they were working together in the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1967.
- GenresBook Club
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2018
17 people want to read
About the author
Maurice Gee
45 books103 followersMaurice Gough Gee was a New Zealand novelist. He was one of New Zealand's most distinguished and prolific authors, having written over thirty novels for adults and children, and having won numerous awards both in New Zealand and overseas, including multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. In 2003 he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest living artists across all disciplines by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which presented him with an Icon Award.
Gee's novel Plumb (1978) was described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature to be one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. He was also well-known for children's and young adult fiction such as Under the Mountain (1979). He won multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and in 2002 he was presented with the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award by the Children's Literature Foundation in recognition of his contributions to children's literature.
Gee's novel Plumb (1978) was described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature to be one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. He was also well-known for children's and young adult fiction such as Under the Mountain (1979). He won multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and in 2002 he was presented with the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award by the Children's Literature Foundation in recognition of his contributions to children's literature.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 15, 2022
I'm glad I read Rachel Barrowman's biography of Maurice Gee Maurice Gee: Life and Work first because this memoir filled in the rest of the blanks (and avoided the subject of his first wife) about his parents, his childhood up to age 18 and then his second wife and how they met. The memoir is made up of 3 separate sections and the first, mostly about his mother contains some of her writing and its told in the third person.
This is where Maurice Gee got his writing bug from I suppose and all the material for his famous NZ novel Plumb. But more importantly, reading this memoir is a trip back in time for me because Maurice grew up in MY home town! So all the streets and places he describes are very familiar to me, and interesting to read what it was like in the 1930s.
The other thing is he did become a librarian and also married a librarian. He doesn't mention his later writing career as that's for someone else to write about...but the descriptions of the place, and his boyhood, and some of the things he got up to find his way into his children's fiction and adult novels.
One thing I did note was that every time a family member died, they got cremated and ashes got scattered under a tree in the Waitakere Ranges. So I can't go walking through the Waikumete Cemetery and find any of the Gees there.
Though I can drive/walk through all the streets and see the creek Maurice describes in his memoir (which flows behind my house)
This is where Maurice Gee got his writing bug from I suppose and all the material for his famous NZ novel Plumb. But more importantly, reading this memoir is a trip back in time for me because Maurice grew up in MY home town! So all the streets and places he describes are very familiar to me, and interesting to read what it was like in the 1930s.
The other thing is he did become a librarian and also married a librarian. He doesn't mention his later writing career as that's for someone else to write about...but the descriptions of the place, and his boyhood, and some of the things he got up to find his way into his children's fiction and adult novels.
One thing I did note was that every time a family member died, they got cremated and ashes got scattered under a tree in the Waitakere Ranges. So I can't go walking through the Waikumete Cemetery and find any of the Gees there.
Though I can drive/walk through all the streets and see the creek Maurice describes in his memoir (which flows behind my house)
Displaying 1 of 1 review