Tenure As A Statistician

OK, close enough to the end of 2017 for me to determine my favourite reads. TENURE... is my 2017 BEST NZ BOOK.

This is probably the first book I have read within a month of publication... me being too tight to buy a new book when I can wait until the hype passes and pick one up for five bucks. By way of declaration - it was provided a a minimal cost (practically free) by the author on the basis of a review - which was always going to happen if I read the book.

This isn't a straightforward review to write, as the author has a slightly unusual marketing ploy of not really letting on what the book is about. The blurb gives us a little, the title practically nothing. So I don't intend to give away too much.

So, without further procrastination, the novel is told from the first person perspective of the three main characters whose lives are intertwined, together then apart over a period of years. Initially set in New Zealand, in 1996 we are introduced to these characters as they are at school. Two of the three are locals, the third an exchange student from the USA. This section of the book sets up the background relationships.

The following section takes place ten years later, from 2006 to 2011, and tells us where the three characters have ended up - scattered across the world, like so many Kiwis of that age are - the UK, Australia, Ireland, brief travel through other places, a stint in Africa with Doctors with out Borders.

The third section takes place in Guatemala, set in 2012 for the end of the Mayan calendar. All three of the main characters are in the same place together. There is then an epilogue back in New Zealand in 2017.

The novel examines consumerism, exploitation / spiritual tourism, dependence on technology and to a degree general degeneration of culture, the New Zealand psyche and the ignorance of youth across generations.

For me the writing is contemporary (although I am not a great judge of this - perhaps it is safer to say it feels contemporary to my fiction reading), it has an interesting but varied style, running to an almost stream of conciousness at times. For New Zealand readers it will conjure many Kiwiana icons from the past with numerous local references. Of the international settings, those of which I have visited read true, and those places I haven't been come across as genuine.

An enjoyable 4 stars.