50 LISTENER MAY 26 2018
BOOKS&CULTURE
by LINDA HERRICKM
oney, and plenty of it, is essential for
a stable life, muses Peter Collie, the
lawyer-narrator in Wellington writer
Kate Duignan’s richly rewarding new
novel The New Ships.
A good income soothes “late-night anxiety
attacks” but his dark past always
intrudes. Three decades earlier,
Collie, trying to make a fast buck
while living with a bunch of
hippies on a boat in Amsterdam,
created a “catastrophe”.
Since then, his focus has been
entirely on building a prestigious
legal career. Yet, at the opening
of the book, in 2001, he is wob-
bling: his wife, Moira, has just
died of cancer, and he’s under
pressure to return to his job at a
reputable law firm in Wellington.
It is October, just after the
9/11 attacks, and the jittery times reflect his
mood. At 49, Collie is prone to recklessness,
blame-shifting and pomposity, all of which is
deliciously portrayed by Duignan.
But he is also an interesting man, who stud-
ied Greek classics at school. The book’s title
is taken from TS Eliot’s poem Marina, which
refers to “the hope, the new ships” as it reflects
on the anguish of paternal love and the lost
daughter of Shakespeare’s Pericles.
Collie had a daughter, Abigail, born when
he was in Amsterdam. She died when she was
six weeks old; her French mother Genevieve
suffered post-natal depression.
One of Collie’s most prized possessions also
harks back to Amsterdam: a huge golden book,
illustrated by Chagall, of the second-century
Greek classic Daphnis and Chloe, set on theisland of Lesbos, which also concerns lost
babies.
For some time, Collie has been unable to
put questions about Abigail’s death out of his
mind. Since his final meeting 11 years ago
with Genevieve, who has since died, he’s been
building “complicated, consoling fantasies”
about his daughter.S
ince his marriage to Moira, there has
always been some mystery attached to
their son, Aaron, now aged 25, and a
rising acting star in London. Aaron, who has
been back in Wellington for his mother’s last
days, is leaving. But father and son have a tiff
at the airport and Aaron goes off the radar.
It’s only later that Duignan divulges that
Moira was pregnant when she met Collie,
and that Aaron’s skin is dark. Moira’s vague
tale about the father’s identity leads him to
conclude that she must have been “vacuously
drunk” when she conceived. Wait until he
finds out the truth.
This is Duignan’s second
novel, after her highly praised
2001 debut Breakwater. The
New Ships is more expansive in
scope, with her vivid descriptive
writing moving assuredly from
Wellington to Amsterdam, Lyon
and Lesbos.
But it’s Collie’s interior mono-
logue that really powers the
often comedic pace: entering the
law firm’s boardroom, he feels
“a tiny shriek-rattle of anxiety
rising off the skulls of my col-
leagues”; “where’s the payback?”
with kids; “I am not and never have been keen
on self-exposure of any kind.”
But in the end, as he is forced to become
more self-aware, Col-
lie’s life sails towards
“the hope, the new
ships”. It’s a really
enthralling and
perceptive read. l
THE NEW SHIPS,
by Kate Duignan
(Victoria University
Press, $30)Man of
sorrows
The shaky life of a
Wellington lawyer
makes for a solid
sophomore novel.
©NIELSEN BOOKSCAN; ©MOTION PICTURE DISTRIBUTORS’ ASSOCIATI
ON OF NEW ZEALAND INC; ROBERT CROSS; GET TY IMAGES
Kate Duignan: expansive, vividly descriptive
writing.1 THE FALLEN, by David
Baldacci (Macmillan)
2 THE WOMAN IN THE
WINDOW, by AJ Finn
(HarperCollins)
3 THE MIDNIGHT LINE, by
Lee Child (Bantam)4 THE GOOD DAUGHTER,
by Karin Slaughter
(HarperCollins)5 ACCIDENTAL HEROES, by
Danielle Steel (Macmillan)6 A COLUMN OF FIRE, by Ken
Follett (Macmillan)7 NYPD RED 5, by James
Patterson & Marshall Karp
(Century)8 THE RISING SEA, by Clive
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(Michael Joseph)9 THE PUNISHMENT SHE
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George (Hodder &
Stoughton)10 TEXAS RANGER, by James
Patterson & Andrew
Bourelle (Century)TOP 10 CRIME
FICTION
TOP 10 FILMS
1 AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
2 THE BREAKER UPPERERS
3 THE GUERNSEY LITERARY
AND POTATO PEEL PIE
SOCIETY4 LIFE OF THE PARTY
5 ISLE OF DOGS
6 TULLY
7 TRUTH OR DARE
8 PETER RABBIT
9 A QUIET PLACE
10 I FEEL PRETTY
Karin SlaughterIsle of Dogs