Aucklanders

99% Press, 2023

In the tradition of James Joyce's Dubliners, Murray Edmond brings us Aucklanders, short stories that celebrate lives lived in New Zealand's biggest city. Through different time-settings, and narrative styles, the tales are variously entertaining, funny, satirical, reflective and tragic. Sometimes they are a little gruesome or absurd. Yet these Aucklanders often feel oddly familiar. Among them we encounter a scared RSA waiter, a Zen sensei who keeps his followers guessing, a shy boy who breaks a neighbour's hothouse with his shanghai slingshot, a famous drunken artist with a tortured legacy, and a delivery driver with a side hustle. The stories variously evoke the hopeful exuberance of youth and love, the pain of heartbreak and loss, and the ambient excitement of a high school play about to begin...