A novel in 21 stories.
One family. Forty years.
The Waters kids ― practical, athletic Mark; the physically beautiful dreamer Davey; and the baby of the family, Samantha ― have had to face more than their fair share of challenges. 1979 was the year their father sold up the farm and invested all the family’s money in a doomed property development next to the ocean in Christchurch. Is that when ‘everything started going wrong’, as Mark believes?
Will their bond survive the passage of time or will the three siblings succumb to their parents’ legacy of failure? Can the past be overcome . . . and forgiven?
About the Author:
Carl Nixon is an award-winning short story writer, novelist and playwright. He
has twice won the Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition, and won the Bank of
New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition in 2007. His first
book, Fish ’n’ Chip Shop Song and other stories went to number one on the
New Zealand bestselling fiction list, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. Nixon completed his first novel while he
was the Ursula Bethell/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence at Canterbury
University in 2006. Rocking Horse Road saw him identified as ‘a major
talent’ by North & South, and was long-listed for the International IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award 2009. It has been published in China, France, and Germany
and was on several lists for the best crime novels in Germany in 2012. His
second novel, Settlers’ Creek, was also long-listed for the Dublin Literary
Award. His novel, The Virgin and the Whale is being developed as a feature film
by South Pacific Pictures. His stage plays have been produced in every
professional theatre in New Zealand. They include Mathew, Mark, Luke and Joanne,
The Birthday Boy and The Raft. He has adapted for the stage Lloyd
Jones’s novel The Book of Fame and JM Coetzee’s Disgrace. He was awarded
the 2020 Howard McNaughton Prize at the Adam NZ Play Awards, recognising
excellence in an unproduced script. In 2018 Carl Nixon was awarded the
Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in France where he worked on The Tally
Stick. See more at www.carlnixon.co.nz/
