The Mires – Tina Makereti

READ FOR NZ BOOK AWARDS

Three neighbouring families in a small New Zealand town become acquaintances, some get along, others are suspicious of each other. Some share an attraction, another has a strange gift for premonition and another is acting cagey and has secrets to hide. They live in a coastal town that is succumbing to the effects of climate change and while the nearby mires stir, history, tradition and the future of the characters’ lives and of ours are explored.
 

Water will come and you think it will be soft. You think it will be smooth and find its way around your your houses and cars and furniture, your gardens and windows and hope. But water can be the foot of an elephant, the horns of a moose, a herd of buffalo running from a lion, water can be the kauri falling in the forest, a two-tonne truck, a whole stadium filled with 50,000 people, screaming …  Water is life, and water can be death.

●  The swampiness that is at the crux of this book really crept into all parts of the narrative. I always felt under water, being pulled this way and that between the characters stories, and like there was a slow dread creeping up on me. The characters were all perfectly formed and though kind of expected – old racist white lady, Māori single mum, lovely but hard done by immigrants – they did all fill out and become their own characters. Very good combination of climate/immigrant/social rights into one story. Plus there was a creepy thriller plot and a really great ending. – Rachel

●  I felt like sobbing after finishing The Mires, but as I was in public I unhealthily held it in. Each of the characters carries their own sadness/loss (maybe apart from Walty, the toddler) which permeates the novel and there was the sense of grief lingering past the final pages. The overwhelm from the weather event in the novel reminded me of Brannavan Gnanalingam’s Sodden Downstream, and the uneasiness I feel from the way those who could do with the most support are the most easily dismissed is the same. – Suzy

Published 2024
Ultimo Press
309 pages