KEHUA! BY FAY WELDON, ALLEN & UNWIN, $29.99.
There’s a chaotic and, at times, decidedly dotty feel to British author Fay Weldon’s latest opus, which envelops you with all the friendliness of a warm coat as its plot unfolds, then pokes you in the ribs with sharp characterisation.
Hovering in the air, above doorways and around corners, are the kehua – Maori spirits unfinished with their charges – as they hang in limbo between life and death and summon up dark terrors from the past. In the here and now, this is a tale of women – grandmothers, mothers, daughters and great-granddaughters – all battling against the usual path, trying to “have it all” and often losing their way in the process. Not least among these is the author herself, who appears like a clacking puppet mistress, banging on her keyboard in her gloomy spider-ridden basement, shaping what becomes a genuinely warm and fanciful journey.
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