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False River
Riffing on truth, lies and secrets, this collection uses fiction to explore fact, and fact to explore fiction. Fictional characters muse upon the truth behind real people, non-fiction pieces contain short interludes of fiction, fiction is written to read like an essay, made-up elements slip into true accounts. These pieces range the world – from America, to Antwerp to Aotearoa – and talk about writers and writing, famous figures, family members, witch-burning in Denmark, cyclones and numerous pertinent and stimulating topics. All brilliantly written, each will leave you thinking and desperate to jump back in for more.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2017
4 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Paula Morris
49 books543 followersPaula Morris, a novelist and short story writer of English and Maori descent, was born in New Zealand. For almost a decade she worked in the record business in London and New York. She now lives in New Orleans, where she teaches creative writing at Tulane University.
Paula's first novel, Queen of Beauty, won best first work of fiction at the 2003 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Hibiscus Coast, a literary thriller set in Auckland and Shanghai, was published in 2005 and has been optioned for film. Her third novel, Trendy But Casual, was published by Penguin New Zealand in 2005.
Paula's first short story collection, Forbidden Cities (2008) was a regional finalist in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Ruined, her first YA novel, was published by Scholastic in 2009.
Paula's first novel, Queen of Beauty, won best first work of fiction at the 2003 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Hibiscus Coast, a literary thriller set in Auckland and Shanghai, was published in 2005 and has been optioned for film. Her third novel, Trendy But Casual, was published by Penguin New Zealand in 2005.
Paula's first short story collection, Forbidden Cities (2008) was a regional finalist in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Ruined, her first YA novel, was published by Scholastic in 2009.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 19, 2019
What a brilliant collection of short stories, essays and non-fiction writing. Paula Morris is my latest literary discovery and I now want to read everything she's written!
April 26, 2018
One of the things I most love about Paula Morris is her versatility, clearly evident in False River, an anthology of stories and essays reflecting the breadth her interests and her skills as a writer. Among its pages European fables rub shoulders with slices-of-life from Mt Roskill, discourse on historical figures sit alongside deeply personal portraits of her late parents, each exploring the complex relationship between fact and fiction, and the truth that lies in the heart of any story. This same ambiguity is reflected in the collection itself; while some pieces fall clearly on one side of the fence or the other, several essays have previously been published as fiction, and three of the non-fiction pieces explore the difficulty of untangling historical reality from popular myth.
It is hard to pick favourites from such a strong selection, but three pieces particularly stood out to me, one from each fac/ictional category. In the deliciously wicked Premises, a writer is commissioned to produce a movie synopsis for a major studio and proceeds to pitch the plots of Jane Austen’s novels from Northanger Abbey to Persuasion, each without success (the producers prefer Brontë, although they can’t decide which one). Simultaneously highlighting Austen ability to transform the most convoluted of scenarios into brilliantly timeless social satire, and skewering a myopic, formula-driven industry bereft of light and magic, this story left me laughing in smug delight.
In Women, Still Talking, a ‘fictional’ version of which appeared in Takahē, Morris describes the way in which her mother – an inveterate gossip who drowned her listeners in anecdotes about friends, neighbours, strangers whose conversations she had overheard – presented other people’s stories because she was unable (or unwilling) to share her own. It is bitter irony therefore that her final illness should rob her of language, a silence every bit as painful as her physical decline. In this essay and its companion, Inheritance, Morris pieces together what she can from her own understanding and memory, giving her mother the voice she could not find in life.
Another mater-familial relationship, that of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose, is the focus of Rocky Ridge, and a synecdoche of the collection as a whole. Like so many of us, Laura’s Little House series was a touchstone of Morris’s childhood, and whilst in the US she embarked on an expedition, both physical and intellectual, into Laura’s American Frontier, only to discover that “[t]he ‘true story’ was only true some of the time. And a lot of what wasn’t true about the books was the work of Rose Wilder Lane.” Although fascinating in its own right, her thoughtful examination into the ‘real’ history of the family also explores the distinction between the truth and the whole truth, and the question of who controls how and what is told. Although now aware of the elisions, omissions and deliberate framing behind the Wilder books, they remain as magical to me as when I first read them, and here, to my mind, is Morris’s most important message. Lessons can be learned from any story, true or not, and perhaps what matters most is that it be a tale well told. In False River, this is certainly the case.
It is hard to pick favourites from such a strong selection, but three pieces particularly stood out to me, one from each fac/ictional category. In the deliciously wicked Premises, a writer is commissioned to produce a movie synopsis for a major studio and proceeds to pitch the plots of Jane Austen’s novels from Northanger Abbey to Persuasion, each without success (the producers prefer Brontë, although they can’t decide which one). Simultaneously highlighting Austen ability to transform the most convoluted of scenarios into brilliantly timeless social satire, and skewering a myopic, formula-driven industry bereft of light and magic, this story left me laughing in smug delight.
In Women, Still Talking, a ‘fictional’ version of which appeared in Takahē, Morris describes the way in which her mother – an inveterate gossip who drowned her listeners in anecdotes about friends, neighbours, strangers whose conversations she had overheard – presented other people’s stories because she was unable (or unwilling) to share her own. It is bitter irony therefore that her final illness should rob her of language, a silence every bit as painful as her physical decline. In this essay and its companion, Inheritance, Morris pieces together what she can from her own understanding and memory, giving her mother the voice she could not find in life.
Another mater-familial relationship, that of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose, is the focus of Rocky Ridge, and a synecdoche of the collection as a whole. Like so many of us, Laura’s Little House series was a touchstone of Morris’s childhood, and whilst in the US she embarked on an expedition, both physical and intellectual, into Laura’s American Frontier, only to discover that “[t]he ‘true story’ was only true some of the time. And a lot of what wasn’t true about the books was the work of Rose Wilder Lane.” Although fascinating in its own right, her thoughtful examination into the ‘real’ history of the family also explores the distinction between the truth and the whole truth, and the question of who controls how and what is told. Although now aware of the elisions, omissions and deliberate framing behind the Wilder books, they remain as magical to me as when I first read them, and here, to my mind, is Morris’s most important message. Lessons can be learned from any story, true or not, and perhaps what matters most is that it be a tale well told. In False River, this is certainly the case.
November 5, 2017
There are fourteen stories in this book; the first six are fiction and the rest are essays and nonfiction. All of them are excellent.
The collection starts and ends with stories about New Orleans. The first is fiction and the last the true account of the author and her husband evacuating the city ahead of hurricane Katrina, followed by the months taken before they could return and begin to reassemble their lives. With much of our view of the world restricted to a few seconds of sound bite, it is easy to miss the magnitude of an event like this. We lose track that a year later there is still no return to normality. This is a very personal first hand account that shines a light on the darkness of the situation and the determination of people to find a normality amongst such adversity.
One of the most noticeable features of False River is the international flavour. It takes us for a spin around the globe. While we return to Te Atatu South on a number of occasions we also visit Rome, York, South Shields, New Orleans, Denmark, Missouri, Antwerp and New Mexico. We pursue some literary adventures in search of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote Little House on the Prairie and Ouida whose sentimental tale of a boy and a dog is almost unknown in Belgium where it is set, but is wildly popular in Japan. We trace the last movements of Billy the Kid and look for the actual place that Blues singer Robert Johnson died.
I may have given the impression of many disparate stories, but they are all in some way part of Paula Morris' life. Many are her experiences and that brings them together with a unifying force that gives great cohesion to this collection. My advice - read this, it is brilliant.
The collection starts and ends with stories about New Orleans. The first is fiction and the last the true account of the author and her husband evacuating the city ahead of hurricane Katrina, followed by the months taken before they could return and begin to reassemble their lives. With much of our view of the world restricted to a few seconds of sound bite, it is easy to miss the magnitude of an event like this. We lose track that a year later there is still no return to normality. This is a very personal first hand account that shines a light on the darkness of the situation and the determination of people to find a normality amongst such adversity.
One of the most noticeable features of False River is the international flavour. It takes us for a spin around the globe. While we return to Te Atatu South on a number of occasions we also visit Rome, York, South Shields, New Orleans, Denmark, Missouri, Antwerp and New Mexico. We pursue some literary adventures in search of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote Little House on the Prairie and Ouida whose sentimental tale of a boy and a dog is almost unknown in Belgium where it is set, but is wildly popular in Japan. We trace the last movements of Billy the Kid and look for the actual place that Blues singer Robert Johnson died.
I may have given the impression of many disparate stories, but they are all in some way part of Paula Morris' life. Many are her experiences and that brings them together with a unifying force that gives great cohesion to this collection. My advice - read this, it is brilliant.
March 23, 2019
There is quite a mix of things here and I definitely like the fiction more than the non fiction.
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October 12, 2019I particularly loved the last two essays in this collection - 'Sick Notes' and 'City to be Abandoned'.
December 13, 2020
I fell in love with Paula Morris' essays after reading "On Coming Home" in 2015. This collection of short stories and essays is now my curre nt favorite book.
June 7, 2022
A good read. Especially liked the fiction, felt like a fly on the wall / slice of life which I enjoy. I appreciated the Sick Note essay a lot.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews