Clever and fun writing with a cool dark heart

• Published date: 26 November 2022
• Publication title: Mix, The

Catherine Chidgey

Te Herenga Waka University Press

Yes, this is a novel with a talking magpie as a narrator, but don’t let that deter you.

I admit I was dubious. I admire Catherine Chidgey (author of the excellent Remote Sympathy), I think she should be one of our national treasures. However, I have had ‘‘experiences’’ with books narrated by birds before, a book called The Lucky Galah and Jonathan Livingston Seagull spring to mind. But Tama, our magpie guide in this outstanding novel, is a canny observer, mimic and mischief maker. I was charmed by him from the first page.

Set in Central Otago, Marnie and her husband Rob run a struggling sheep farm on Wilderness Rd. They live in their ‘‘yolk-yellow’’ house that Marnie has dressed up with her handmade cushions but these touches cannot disguise the impression of decay. Rob, with his hard ‘‘Riverstone eyes’’ and muscled axeman’s physique, is struggling to make the farm profitable while training for his 10th ‘‘Golden Axe’’. His temper is dangerously short.

Tama enters their lives as a fledgling and quickly learns to mimic speech. Chaos and hilarity ensue. Chidgey does well to build a creeping sense of dread and inevitability about what will happen. Events are building to a dramatic conclusion at the coming Axeman’s Carnival.

However, for much of the novel, these darker concerns are pushed to the back of our minds as Tama becomes a viral internet...