Whitcoulls Recommends: 1985: A Novel and High Heels and Gumboots

1985: A Novel by Dominic Hoey. Set in Auckland in the mid 80’s as the title suggests, this is the story of a young man coming of age in a dysfunctional family in Grey Lynn before it became gentrified, when the area and many of the people who lived in it were rough, not necessarily law abiding and where there seemed sometimes to be no future. Obi and his best friend Al discover a map which they believe leads to treasure, and which they hope will turn their fortunes around. The book is extremely atmospheric of the era, and took me right back. Terrific local fiction.

High Heels and Gumboots by Rebecca Hayter. Rebecca is a sailor and a journalist, often combining the two things, who turned her back on Auckland and bought a property in Golden Bay, where she had grown up many years earlier. It’s a story about leaving the city and discovering independence and self sufficiency, a strong community to call her own, and finding ways to come to terms with the fractious relationship she had had with her mother, who was something of a legend in the area. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks at B and.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Join him now is Joan McKenzie. Good morning. You've got
a couple of Keew books for us this morning, which
is wonderful. Tell me about nineteen eighty five, a novel
by Dominic Hoey. Is that how I say it?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I believe?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
So okay cool yep.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Unsurprisingly, it's set in nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
It's a bit of a giveaway at the time of.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, and it's
also set on Crummer Road in Grayln, before Graylyn was
so gentrified, so it's a very very different world. And
our lead character is a young boy. He's about eleven
or twelve years old around the start of the story.
His name is Obie, which comes from Star Wars, and
Obie is a bit of a video gamer and the

(00:52):
family are very short on money. He lives with his
mum and dad and his sister and his best friend's
a guy called al Mum is an addict and dad's
unemployed and things are just a bit hopeless. Mum's always
on at Dad to go and get a job, but
Dad a poet, he has the soul of a poet,
and he's a romantic and he's far too busy doing
other things than to have time to go to work.

(01:13):
So they live in this house and what they need
is money, and Obi decides to enter a competition for
a video game which has a reasonable prize, which he
wants to win. And then a guy comes to stay
with them who's a friend of his father's who's just
got out of prison, and he has a map in
his backpack and his belongings which appears to be a

(01:36):
map to some treasure, and so Obi and al believe
that they can get this map and go and find
the treasure.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It's really lovely, Oh fantastic, And tell me about high
heels and gum boots.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
This is by Rebecca Hater, who is a journalist. She
worked for a yachting magazine. She is a sailor herself.
She decided to turn her back on the big city
and bought a property down in Golden Bay, which her
property was only accessible by driving along the beach. She
spent seven years down there. And she was a city
girl who went to the country. And as the subtitle says,

(02:08):
she was a city girl with a lot to learn.
She had sheep, she had chocks, she had a large
property which required an enormous amount of inventiveness and hard
work and dedication. But the other reason that she went
there was because that's where she grew up in the area,
and she had a lifelong issue with her mother which

(02:28):
she was very determined to try and resolve. And moving
down there and living in the area where her mother
had been such a respected woman, she was the local doctor,
she found that she was able to sort things out
in her own mind and in her own life and
live this extraordinary life for seven years on this property,
which essentially feels to me like it's in the middle
of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
And look, we always dream of doing that, don't we.
I you know, I dream of doing that, But then
I always love to read the stories and hear the
reality of it. Would if I read this book, would
it make me want to do it? Or put me off?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Oh? It made me tired?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I think that answers that. Thank you so much, Johan.
Those two books there were nineteen eighty five and novel
by Dominic Hoey, and also High Heels and Gamboats by
Rebecca Hater or talk next week.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Join it for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
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