Lead Review
- Book: All Day at the Movies
- Location: New Zealand (Aotearoa)
- Author: Fiona Kidman
The book opens with the story of Irene and her daughter, who move to the tobacco plantations in New Zealand in search of work. Subsequent chapters follow her descendants over three generations – their individual stories, relationships and where they end up in the world. The book starts in 1952 and comes to its conclusion in 2015.
Irene experiences a love affair but in the end sadly needs to take a more pragmatic decision about her future life. The unconscious family dynamics permeate the actions and desires of the next generations…. strength, fallibility, anger and disappointment.
The author has many accolades to her name and is a truly gifted writer. She explores the subtleties of human interaction and family with a deft and insightful hand. Family ties can be wonderful, they can also be broken, and life itself intervenes with its characteristic capricious perversity.
I was utterly drawn in by the writing style and the sketched characterisation. I felt tantalised by the people who populate the book and wanted to know more about them. And that is where the book didn’t quite work for me – the book felt like a compilation of short stories held together by the family structure and I wanted to get to know the characters more than I was offered. Perhaps I am just greedy for really well-explored characterisation, and oh, the potential for that really was there….
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