Winner of the 1987 New Zealand Fiction Award, this is a work of spellbinding power that weaves myths of older times into the political realities of today. Set amid fear and confusion, Patricia Grace’s novel about a coastal community faced with mortal danger is a masterpiece of Maori fiction; “as delicate as a Japanese brushwork, yet as poignant and throat-aching as the loss of a loved one.”

Switching between first person and third person, this loose narrative of developers trying to build a resort on Maori land revolves around the family of Roimata Kararaina and her husband, Hemi Tamihana. Although land development is the central theme, Grace, the New Zealand author of several novels and short-story collections, is at her best portraying the lives of her characters, from their daily tasks (eel-fishing and cooking) to the stories they tell-both real hard-luck stories and ancestral myths. While the writing here is often elegant in its simplicity (the first-person sections in particular are beguilingly direct-``I have loved Hemi since I was five,'' Roimata announces by way of introduction) and the information about Maori life intriguing, the plot thread is often buried. Individual segments stand out because of Grace's able descriptions, but liberal use of Maori words such as papakainga and tangi with no explanation (a glossary might have helped) add to the confusion. When the conflict with ``the dollarman'' (their nickname for a Mr. Dolman, who comes to try to convince them to accept a project that includes not only a nightclub and golf course, but also ``trained whales and seals etcetera'') heats up, it moves matters along, but those sharp-edged segments can be disorienting in tandem with all the magical storytelling. This uneasy mix never jells completely, and the saga of native people suffering at the hands of an imperialist oppressor is not especially fresh. (June)

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