An outlier brooks no terse introduction. Nevertheless, give me five hundred words to try. Meet Keri Hulme’s novel, The Bone People, Booker Prize winner for 1985.
New Zealand, nineteen eighties, a cruel, vibrant, love story between three unrelated people: a woman, a child, and a man; a mystery infused with Maori myths, soaked with Maori language, suspended between poetry and prose, written unconventionally but with effusive, effortless erudition.
The emotional ride — having recently finished the book — I would describe as explosive disbelief, followed by heartwarming realisation that not all conventional wisdom is sound, not all differences are differences, and that there is hope for us human beings, whichever way we are wrought and then brought together. You, no doubt, would express yourself in other words: there is great latitude for interpretation.
The book is unique, in style and in substance.
The following quote illustrates a few unusual aspects of the writing. The typographic features, indentation and spacing, are deliberate. (The quote is given as an image, to ensure that all browsers preserve the typography.)
A Quiver Of Quotes 