Necessary Secrets: A Novel

by Greg McGee

Spanning the four seasons of a year, "Necessary Secrets" tells the story of Dennis (Den) Sparks and his three adult children. Starting with Den contemplating his mortality on the day of his 70th birthday, the year ahead is told from four different points of view. A searing picture of NZ society today, the family deals with love, loss, financial struggles, drugs, domestic violence, and all the issues that Kiwis deal with daily. As he has done in his plays and his screen-writing, McGee turns a spotlight on the relationships and social issues of New Zealanders while making for an entertaining read.

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Greg McGee is an award-winning New Zealand playwright, television screenwriter, novelist, and biographer.

A promising young rugby player, McGee became a Junior All Black and All Blacks trialist. He graduated from law school, then in 1980 his first play, Foreskin's Lament, debuted. Centred around rugby, this play became iconic in New Zealand and garnered McGee popular acclaim.

He is a successful screenwriter, writing based-on-true story dramatisations and mini-series based on the Erebus disaster and the infamous Lange Government, as well as contributing to several popular television shows (Marlin Bay, Street Legal, Orange Roughies). He also penned the screenplay for Old Scores, a rugby-based feature film.

As a novelist, McGee first wrote under the pseudonym Alix Bosco, winning the prestigious Ngaio Marsh Award for his debut, CUT & RUN. He also wrote All Blacks captain Richie McCaw's biography, one of the bestselling New Zealand books of recent years.

Reviews

[Vicki Antipodean Bookclub · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I look at the three of them still throwing barbs at each other in their middle age and feel depressed that such an old truth can keep reasserting itself: whatever we’ve become out in the world, we always come home to be what we are.”
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Den has been a bit of a rogue in his time. As his three adult children gather to celebrate his 70th birthday, Den is considering ending his own life with Walther, his snub-nosed PPK by his side. Split into four seasonal sections with each section narrated by a different family member, I found myself becoming more and more engrossed in this story as its tangled web of lies and secrets developed. Although Necessary Secrets encompassed some difficult themes; family violence, addiction and loss, it was an unexpectedly pleasurable read because of its macabre sense of humour, contemporary New Zealand references and some rather loveable characters. Plus, I always enjoy it when a book contains a reading list. In this case, a reading list of “wonderful modern literature, real and funny and dark and strangely uplifting” along the theme of unhappy families. The author (via the character Stan) suggests:
📖 The Green Road by Anne Enright
📖 May we be Forgiven by A.M. Holmes
📖 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
📖 This Must be the Place by Maggie O’ Farrell
A book with homework always appeals to my inner nerd!

With thanks to the publisher #upstartpress for my ARC. Necessary Secrets is available now.

[Kiwiflora · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is really quite intriguing that the same two parents can produce children, bring them up the same way, and yet, they are so incredibly different and diverse from each other. Their lives take different paths, some good, some not so good. They get on with each other, they don't. It is completely and totally fascinating how families operate. Greg McGee has written a masterwork in this novel of three very different adult siblings over the course of a year, a different season for each. .

Their father Den, who lives in the old family home in the gold mine of Herne Bay, is turning 70. Suffering from dementia he is still lucid enough to know that things are all down hill, and with his trusty gun at his side is considering ending it all. Oldest child Will, who now owns and works in the advertising agency started by his father, is not a nice person, immersing himself in drugs and seedy sex, recently separated from his wife. Ellie is the middle child, the only daughter, compassionate, kind, taking a break from her social work career to look after Den. In reality she has burnt out, her work with domestic violence victims taking its toll. Youngest child Stan left Auckland some years ago and is now living the pared back life on a commune-style farm in the Nelson area. There is also a foster boy, Jackson, and his sister Lila, taken under the wing of Ellie and living with her and Den.

What to do with Dad becoming increasingly disoriented and confused, what is Will to do with the business on the rocks, what is Ellie to do now that Den is going into care, what is Stan to do as he sees his idyllic life is not as satisfying as it once was. The characters are so real, so well developed, every few pages revealing a different facet of each, their relationships with each other, the dilemmas they try to navigate. And there is also a very good story, with many issues that most of us have had to face at some stage in our lives, especially regarding sibling stuff.

I loved this - so insightful, it's not all fluff and roses, there is a murder - quite bloody as it happens, and the whole thing has the feel of complete real-ness. A modern retelling of how families can fall apart, and how there is still hope for improvement when everyone starts talking and communicating again.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to really decide if I like this novel or not. There are certainly elements that I enjoyed, as well as characters. The overall effect seemed to have something missing.

The book is structured over the four seasons of the year. We are gradually introduced to the Sparks family, starting with the patriarch Den Sparks who is about to celebrate his birthday. Den has worked most of his life in television and advertising, most notably making commercials. He cut his teeth in the age of expense budgets and entertaining clients. Now he is closing in on eighty and losing his grip on events. His family is concerned that he can no longer look after himself. But Den has a plan, involving Walter, his pet name for a Walther PPK revolver with a single bullet, which he intends to use as his passport out. All he has to do is remember where he put the gun. He also has an unhealthy addiction to online shopping and telling the same stories multiple times.
Den has two sons and a daughter. Ellie has all the compassion and does most of the caring. Will has followed his father’s career into television and simply wants to squeeze his inheritance from his dad to help keep his own company afloat. Stan, the youngest has been living on a commune at the top of the South Island for a while now.
Combine all of these character and their conflicting needs and emotions, and you have a pretty mixed up family. Den is written with a good deal of humour, Will is very unlikable and Stan may have been on the weed too long. There is plenty to enjoy about their encounters, but there is less that there should be to hold everything together with a discernable plot.

[Brian Stoddart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Necessary Secrets confirms a point that should already be well established: that Greg McGee is one of New Zealand’s best contemporary writers as well as one of its most versatile across plays, screen writing, biographies, crime and literary fiction (although the purists may well see this new work in the crime genre given there is a killing).
Without revealing the secrets that drive the story arc, suffice it to say that main protagonist Den Sparks is only too aware that severe dementia is wrecking his life so sets out to end it all on his seventieth birthday. Except that circumstances intervene and the associated effects of the disease do him in a year later.
The circumstances revolve around his three kids and, in some important degree, the spiritual presence of his dead wife who, he has realised too late, he treated way too badly as he lived the life of a television commercial producer in a business now taken over by his eldest son. The younger son has fled to the remote South Island to escape the family but now must recalibrate, while the social worker daughter has given up the career to look after dad.
This story unfolds over the four seasons beginning with spring and Den’s realisation that he is in trouble. The following three seasons are told from the perspective of the three kids but with the other players filling in the sequences cleverly and tellingly. The story moves quickly across this structure – for example, the night of Den’s birthday party gathers all the players together, awkwardly and competitively, then in the next “season” we discover that the house has burned down and is now the subject of an insurance investigation.
Similarly, each sequence unfolds a specific character’s challenges but does so against the trajectory of the others. And to assist in that, a few well chosen additional characters appear to spur things along, notably a troubled young Maori boy and his equally difficult sister.
McGee tells this story brilliantly.
It is a story set in New Zealand but with a universal impact so should in no way be approached as a parochial one. It talks about disruption, for example – Den and his son both regret the passing of an older, more established advertising regime that privileged a few but is now swept away by anyone with a decent phone and/or camera. It talks about generational envy – the politics of the baby boomers and subsequent generations. It talks about personal challenge and change, and in the case of the elder son has a successful result but not necessarily in a way that is politically correct. It talks about the rise of Te Reo Maori and the generational change that prompts. And it talks about the despair with politics and politicians that is now universal.
Greg McGee can write, period. And that allows him to unroll this difficult story with insight, compassion and, above all humour that is sometimes sharp. There is a dig at the Lord of the Rings films, for example, where Den dismisses them as lacking story and over compensating with length. Grahame Sydney’s art (or some of it) gets a similar poke as do politicians, policy makers and everyone else. So, amidst drama there are moments of pure humour and hilarity that reinforce the severity of the results, somehow.
And the full result is that Den departs the scene and his kids all reach resolution, we sympathise and agree with that even if we recognise some difficulties in doing so.
This might well be Greg McGee’s best book – the rest are excellent, so that sets a high bar, but justifiably so, I think. This will be one of the books of the year, in New Zealand and elsewhere.

[Tony Nielsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

New Zealand author Greg McGee has pretty much done it all. Worked in theatre, television, film, and more recently as a writer of "Foreskin's Lament", a uniquely presented story based on his life at the heart of the Kiwi rugby culture. Then there was his 2012 record breaking Richie McCaw biography, again rich in rugby traditions.

In "Necessary Secrets" McGee introduces us to the Sparks family, warts and all. Dennis Sparks is about to turn 70 and is holed up with a Walther PPK pistol, plucking up the courage to use it on himself. His three adult children Will, Ellie and Stan are also gathered at Den's Herne Bay home.

The novel is told in four parts , each one from a different family member so we get an accurate picture of their relationships, their hopes, their expectations. Its at times darky, funny, and an intimate look at modern family life in New Zealand. A worthy read from Greg McGee.

[Gavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book, but it moved a little slowly in the middle & felt rushed at the end. Strong characters, believable dialogue. Interesting themes of advertising, the arts, family, dementia, drugs, hippies, economic class system.