SALE ON NOW! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

The Party Line

Sue Orr

$32.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Vintage New Zealand
26 August 2015
An enthralling novel of individual bravery versus silent, collective complicity, set in a vividly drawn farming community in 1970s New Zealand.

An enthralling novel of individual bravery versus silent, collective complicity, set in a vividly drawn farming community in 1970s New Zealand.

The Baxters do not know their place.

On the first of June every year, sharemilkers load their trucks with their families, pets and possessions and crawl along the highways towards new farms, new lives. They're inching towards that ultimate dream - buying their own land.

Fenward's always been lucky with its sharemilkers- grateful, grafting folk who understand what's expected of them. Until now, when grief-stricken Ian Baxter and his precocious daughter, Gabrielle, arrive.

Nickie Walker is enchanted by the glamour and worldliness of Gabrielle. Nickie's mother finds herself in the crossfire of a moral battle she dreads to confront. Each has a story to share.

This is a coming-of-age story for two young girls who hold a mirror up to the place and people they love. It's a coming-of-age story, too, for a community forced to stare back at the image of a damaged soul.

The question is- who will blink first?
By:  
Imprint:   Vintage New Zealand
Country of Publication:   New Zealand
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 153mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   332g
ISBN:   9781775537557
ISBN 10:   1775537552
Pages:   256
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Sue Orr is the author of two short story collections. Etiquette for a Dinner Party (2008) won the Lilian Ida Smith Award and From Under the Overcoat (2011) was shortlisted for the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards and won the People's Choice Award. Her fiction has been published in New Zealand and international anthologies and translated into Spanish. In 2011 she was the Sargeson Buddle Findlay Fellow. She has taught creative writing at Manukau Institute of Technology and Massey University and has a PhD in Creative Writing from Victoria University, Wellington. 'If you only have time for one new local writer in your life then make sure it is Sue Orr,' wrote novelist and critic Nicky Pellegrino in the Herald on Sunday. Etiquette for a Dinner Party presents 'a wonderfully diverse, yet believable collection of characters and maladies stretching across a classic New Zealand landscape' (The Otago Daily Times), with stories which offer an 'intriguing, sharp-eyed exploration of gaps and misunderstandings between people, and gaps between hopes or expectations and reality, with some nicely black twists and turns thrown in' (The New Zealand Listener). Fiona Kidman wrote of From Under the Overcoat- 'Sue Orr's stories have that mesmerising quality that makes the reader race on, hoping they will never end, yet desperate to find out what happens next. Their stylishness marks a new departure in contemporary short-story writing, her weaving of new and vibrant stories on to concepts that began with the great masters is high-wire risk taking that succeeds magnificently. I admire these stories immensely- by turn tender, sly, comic, and always deeply informed about the ways of the human heart.' Orr has a twitter account- @SueMOrr.

See Also