True Stars Novel Century Hutchison 1990 Synopsis Who is trying to scare Rose? This gripping novel is a vivid portrayal of New Zealand in the 1980s. Rose Kendall is alone. She is isolated from her children, her friends, and her political ideals, and there is someone trying to scare her – she doesn’t know why …
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Wakeful Nights Poems Vintage 1993 Synopsis This collection echoes Kidman’s progression as a poet and as a woman. It reflects her experiences with family and friends, experiences of love, birth and death. The theme of wakeful nights recurs through the book, from the early poems, to those discussing half-remembered dreams and nightmarish experiences, to her …
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The Foreign Woman Short stories Vintage 1994 Explores the unexpected depths of emotion that lie beneath the surface of the lives of ordinary women.
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Ricochet Baby Novel Vintage 1996 Synopsis ‘When Roberta falls pregnant her whole family is filled with joy.’ Fallen is not exactly how Roberta would describe it, for she and Paul have planned the baby and it has been conceived at exactly the time that they chose. But the birth itself is not as anyone chooses …
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The House Within Linked Short stories Vintage 1997 A novel of linked stories about a woman’s search for identity beyond family ties, expectations and demands. Bethany Dixon is at the centre of a complex network of relationships. She is mother and stepmother, wife and ex, daughter-in-law, sister and lover. Earthy, generous, addicted to children and …
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New Zealand Love Stories: An Oxford Anthology Short stories Oxford University Press 1998 Synopsis Fiona Kidman offers a collection of thirty-eight love stories that includes some of New Zealand’s finest writers from the late nineteenth century to the present.
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Palm Prints Non-fiction Random House 1994 Synopsis In this collection of non-fiction writing and speeches, Fiona Kidman looks at the images that have made up her life, the influences and experiences that inform her works. She explores the process of writing and the world of books, and she takes her readers on many journeys as …
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Marilyn at Malibu In that other country the one we call home on the faded apricot wall of my study hangs a great big silver framed portrait of Marilyn Monroe at Malibu standing on a terrace drinking champagne out of a slipper glass, her head thrown back and her white teeth sparkling in the sunlight …
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The [only] significant theme to emerge was that of events taking place not just here, but ‘over there’, somewhere else, as if New Zealanders no longer look inward, but rather see themselves as part of an international literary community. I was, for instance, blown away by Eirlys Hunter’s story Frozen which might loosely be termed …
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‘In order to make such selections really work, you have to love short stories, or fictions – whatever you choose to call them. And I do. I enjoy reading richly textured short stories (whether it be texture of detail or nuance) every bit as much as I do novels, and the truth is I would …
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