When the Past Catches Up Pukapuka Talks session at the 2023 Nelson Arts Festival

Caroline Barron's Golden Days and Anne Tiernan's The Last Days of Joy are both gripping novels that explore how the past can haunt us in the present. Paula Morris facilitates this gripping conversation.

We meet Barron‘s protagonist Becky when she is mourning the end of her picture-perfect marriage. As she unravels, Becky also remembers one terrifying night in 1995 that changed her life forever. When Zoe, her best friend at the time, reappears in her life, she is forced to reconsider her interpretation of what happened. 

In her bestselling debut novel, Tiernan‘s story is told by three adult siblings, including Sinead, a bestselling author struggling to write her second book. Like her brother Conor and her sister Frances, Sinead carries the scars of their mother’s alcoholism, which we learn is her response to a tragedy in their early childhood, a time they all remember differently. 

Both stories are book club-worthy page turners that raise questions about alcohol use, family, friendship and the human capacity for self-deception. When secrets surface, each character does what they can to survive but inevitably they must each reckon with the truth.