In a story set in nineteenth-century New Zealand and modern London, Jack Mackenzie, a minister and amateur botanist, arrives in Dunedin, only to be expelled from New Zealand, an event that has profound repercussions for his present-day descendants.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although her richly lyrical seventh novel lacks a real unifying perspective, Mackay's ( A Bowl of Cherries ) characters and her descriptions of their lives in South-east London are often moving and poetic. The bulk of her story takes place in contemporary London, but Mackay begins and ends it in Dunedin, New Zealand, where, at the turn of the century, Jack Mackenzie was a corrupt minister at a Presbyterian mission. His grandchildren Olive and William now live together in London in a shabby house also called Dunedin. William is unemployed; Olive is depressed and desperate for a child--so desperate that she snatches a baby on the tube. While following the tumultuous relationship between the siblings, Mackay illuminates both the larger moral and social issues that plague London and also the cruelty and pathos beneath the surface of daily life. But Dunedin loses poignancy under the characters' avalanche of angst. As their problems proliferate, the narrative urgency fades and one is left wanting a sparser, deeper work so that other interesting characters like Jay, Minister Mackenzie's bastard son, might live more fully.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In her latest novel (after A Bowl of Cherries , Moyer Bell, Ltd., 1992), Mackay drifts from New Zealand circa 1909 to London in 1989 as she spins the saga of the unholy Rev. Jack Mackenzie and his clan. Most of the book focuses on his three grandchildren, each a tortured soul on a personal quest. Olive, divorced and now estranged from her lover, reluctantly retreats for sanctuary to the home of her brother William, an ex-schoolmaster trapped in an abyss of guilt over the death of one of his former students. Jay, the illegitimate Mackenzie, sails to England to locate his late grandfather's London house; once a stately mansion, Dunedin has deteriorated into a festering mausoleum sheltering the homeless. With her brooding plot, Mackay creates a kaleidoscope of despair, hope, love, and destruction depicted in fine, lyrical prose. Recommended for public libraries.
- Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Good writer. Too weird a story and weird characters.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dunedin (Hardcover)
I could not even finish this book. After 100 pages I found the whole story line dis-jointed, strange and distasteful. There are too many great books out there to bog your mind down with this one
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