Post #2491331

Frustration, Anger, Dejection, Dissatisfaction Beyond the Reef: Selected stories by Graeme Lay (Hanlon Publishing, 2025), 244pp This is a collection of 20 short stories, both penned and chosen by Graeme Lay, covering a period that begins in 1990 and ends with ‘A Natural Man’, which appeared in 2025. Thirteen of the stories have been previously published or broadcast, according to his Previous Publications page, which, however, omits Lay’s first published story, ‘The Children of Wah’. So the total is actually 14. Most are from late last century or early this one. With a number of previously published story collections, as well as works of non-fiction, Lay is a well-published, long-standing author. Lay is never afraid to confront such ethnic interplays across tēnei whenua—this land—a theme also present in ‘The Children of Wah’, concerning: ‘the one Chinese family who lived on my Taranaki hometown, Opunake’. Here, the Wah whānau are seen as: ‘Chinese as chopsticks, as exotic as eggplants’. https://landfallreview.com/frustration-anger-dejection-dissatisfaction/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email