The Bone People: A Novel (Hardcover Reissue) |
The Bone People: A Novel (Hardcover Reissue)
LSU Press
April 2005
464 pages
6.00 x 9.00 inches
Hardcover ISBN: 9780807130728
- Winner of The Booker Prize
- The Pegasus Prize for Literature
- The New Zealand Book Award for Fiction
Integrating both Māori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Māori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that “to care for anything is to invite disaster.” Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Māori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.
Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness,The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand. After twenty years, it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world.
Tags: Keri Hulme, Louisiana State University Press, LSU Press, New Zealand