Book review of "the Best New Zealand Short Fiction, Vol 5" by Owen Marshall, Vintage Random House, New Zealand

The above quote sums up this collection for me: little sparks of light spiralling up into the night, punctuating the ennui and emptiness of backwater life in rural or semi-urban isolated New Zealand. That's what these stories are, and why this collection matters to me. The superior power of the stars of best-selling fiction often outshines and extinguishes local voices: library-goers get sucked in by the Jodi Picoults and the Salman Rushdies, and if they even consider fiction from New Zealand, they do so obediently, reaching for well-known titles by Katherine Mansfield or Maurice Gee. It is only because of this that I ever dare venture inside the covers of national anthologies like this one, and as the Short Review's editor will attest, even when I do it takes me a long time to come up for air.

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The Short Review

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