The Tales of Anna Hoffman Part One

Self-published. A Bumper Book. Wellingtno, 1998. Paperback in very tidy condition. No inscriptions. 91pp.
Tales of Anna Hoffman is an autobiographical tale of a typical New Zealand girl growing up in a typical small town in New Zealand in the forties and fifties. Anna Hoffman, born in Taumaranui, was a teenager searching for love who fell in the gay and bawdy Auckland of the fifties, rubbing shoulders with the bright, the liberal and disjointed, an independent woman who became the stuff of tabloid scandals. It is a confession of life through the eyes of a growing girl, her emerging sexuality and how she assesses adults' behaviour in relation to her own growing rebelliousness. She recognises the stifling conformity and repressiveness of the era and vows to break out - not only of her caring, closeting and happy home - but also out of Auckland and eventually New Zealand altogether. She concentrates on her music studies as a way out. This story relates the twists and turns that her life takes while she follows her dream of going to Paris.