NGĀ PUKAPUKA • BOOKS
WORDS: ANNA KNOX
This valuable transfer of
The prelude immerses
knowledge sometimes comes
us in Joanne’s childhood,
at the cost of the prose and
via her family’s unofficial
the character development,
archaeological digs in Banks
but what emerges is, by the
Peninsula. This signals the
end, a fiction with justifiably
beginnings of a complex
different priorities, delivered
investigation into the value
in a way that ultimately fits its
of objects and the stories
material well.
they can tell, while exploring
This is an epic story that in
questions of land, belonging
the framework of the book
and identity. “Artefacts,” she
is told (not written) by a
writes, “are carriers of magic.
kaumātua to his mokopuna
They sing songs to the dead
over rēwena bread and tea;
and herald the future.”
a story that tells the listener who he is.
What follows is a different hybrid. The core narrative is a well-paced account of Joanne’s passage from curate’s wife to lesbian academic and writer, and all the challenges this entailed for her in the 1990s. It stands solidly on its own, and a reader might wonder why two other threads are interspersed: one a fictionalised imagining of the history of the famous medieval Lewis chess pieces, which reads like a novel outline; the other, ‘Sue’s
Kāwai: For Such a Time as This
whakapapa’, an account The book’s greatest gift to
of Sue’s Māori ancestry,
readers, and to New Zealand
told by Joanne. Like the
fiction, is to draw a line –
The Queen’s Wife
museums, galleries and
Monty Soutar
unbroken, clear, and full of a
RRP $39.99 or $49.99 HB
powerful and transformative
(Bateman)
understanding – between
Joanne Drayton
and messy with appropriation,
past and present, so that
RRP $40 (Penguin)
as well as charming.
sprawling homes the book visits, this can feel cluttered
Monty Soutar is an excellent
readers are vitally aware of
historian, a fact that both
how recent Kāwai’s story is,
The pitchline for Joanne
The chess pieces on the cover
makes and occasionally
and how present it remains.
Drayton’s memoir is an instant
are not mentioned until the
threatens to break his
One senses the author’s
hook: ‘A modern love story:
final pages, while ‘the Queen’s
phenomenally popular debut
aim – that the knowledge
whakapapa, archaeology, art
wife’, Sue, haunts the account
novel, Kāwai – the first in
and narratives of Māori life
and heartbreak’. The chess
silently, spoken for, and
a planned three-volume
pre-colonial times be shared
pieces on the front cover –
sometimes over – although
historical fiction series and
– and, research-wise, he
two queens, one Māori, one
her astonishing paintings,
the best-selling work of
delivers outstandingly well
Viking – carved by Joanne,
featured in the photo insert,
New Zealand fiction in 2022.
on this. The book is full of
are line and sinker, promising
tell their own story.
Kāwai is destined from
tangible heritage details on
an absorbing story of how
birth to be a warrior
structures, tools, clothing,
she and her partner, artist
leader who will avenge the
waka, landscapes, moko and
Sue Vincent Marshall, left
massacre of his tribe, and the
weapons. And tribal life is
heterosexual marriages,
narrative more or less follows
detailed so thoroughly that
blended lives and families,
the story of his life up to
a reader knows, by the end,
and connected with their
this climactic battle, just as
how to prepare for a chief’s
respective heritages. And it’s
Pākehā, with the twin tomes
wedding, snare a bird and
all set against a rich backdrop
of muskets and Christianity,
train for battle (amongst
of art history, painting and
make landfall.
other things).
museum collections.
52 Hōtoke • Winter 2023 / Heritage.org.nz
Two threads remain hidden.