Today, we hear a lot about ‘white supremacy.’ It’s an ugly idea hewed to by ugly people. However, though most white New Zealanders would not think of themselves as racist - ignorance often begets bigotry.
In this regard the relationship between Maori and pakeha has always interested me and as a teacher for a brief time, I observed two things. First, I derived enormous enjoyment from teaching Maori children but second, I also realised how poorly equipped I was to do so. Different cultures do require different contexts and techniques – and one-size-fits-all is not fit for purpose. For this reason, I am greatly heartened by the long overdue government commitment to properly teach the history of Aortearoa and New Zealand.
Anyway, about twenty years ago I became aware of issues between Maori and pakeha in the small west coast community of Mokau and it seemed that at the root of these issues, as is quite often the case, was pakeha intolerance of Maori 'standing in the way of progress.'
At that time too, I encountered a fellow living an itinerant existence in his boat in the Marlborough Sounds. He had been a farmer in Northland, who had lost his only son. The pain of his loss, which caused the breakdown of his marriage and the sale of his farm, reminded me that there are few events in life more devastating.
It is these two ideas that I combined in ‘Oystercatcher.’ And because I needed a protagonist who would look at life in New Zealand through fresh eyes, the main character, Tom, is an American.
‘Oystercatcher’ is quite a dark story, but it was important to me to try to explore how the interaction between Maori and pakeha can be as fractious as it can be, and yet thankfully as it mostly is, so very rewarding.
In a Nutshell
Tom Mahler is a successful creative director in a Chicago agency, but when he loses his only son, Luke, he is unable to continue his professional life. When he learns he has inherited land in New Zealand, it is the perfect escape and he soon finds himself on a wild stretch of coast near the village of Mokau, living in a rudimentary cottage facing the Tasman Sea. Here, he decides he will construct the dory (a kind of fishing boat common on the NE coast of North America) that he had promised Luke they would build together.
Because of the disturbing change in the second of two letters she receives from Tom, Luke’s mother, Mary, follows him to Mokau, but she is too late. Tom has disappeared and is suspected of murder.
Through his diary, she begins to piece together the chain of strange events that arise from conflict over land use, that also involve Tom’s relationships with the troubled child of the murdered man, a disaffected young woman, and the mysterious and fearsome Maori, Ringatu. Determined to clear Tom’s name, her determination in the face of adversity are instrumental in the resolution of the murder investigation.
‘Oystercatcher’ is a murder mystery, but more than that it is about one man struggling to deal with great personal loss; and in a broader context, it is also about how reluctance to properly understand our recent colonial past, can divide and endanger a small community.