Books by Owen Marshall

Beautifully written, brilliantly observed and ultimately optimistic, this novel powerfully captures the phase in our lives when little seems to happen while things are changing all the same. Sheff is disillusioned with journalism, and with plans to travel overseas chucks in his j...ob. But first he goes south to Alexandra, where his father is dying. He becomes caught up with his family in the agonising inertia of waiting for approaching death. Slowly he comes to terms with suppressed issues of loss, love, resentment and commitment, and acknowledges he must reach out for new relationships. Sheff's gradual transformation - sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes disconcerting - is handled with insight and subtlety and is totally convincing.
Read more

'Dougie's story and mine is not told in the history of William Larnach. It is our private journey, and only we understand how it came about; only we know the fitness and the wonder of it.' William James Mudie Larnach's name resonates in New Zealand history - the self-made man who... built the famous 'castle' on Otago Peninsula, the politician who shot himself in Parliament in October 1898. He was driven to suicide by financial ruin, and by the discovery that his much younger third wife, Constance de Bathe Brandon, was having an affair with his son, Douglas. And it is the story of Conny and Dougie that lies at the heart of Owen Marshall's subtle and compelling new novel. The socially restrictive world of late nineteenth-century Dunedin and Wellington springs vividly to life as Marshall traces the deepening love between stepmother and stepson, and the slow disintegration of the domineering yet vulnerable figure of Larnach himself. Can love ever really be its own world, free of morality and judgement and scandal? Moving, thought-provoking and superbly written, The Larnachs is a memorable piece of fiction from one of our wisest authors.
Read more

This entertaining and insightful novel both skewers and celebrates small-town New Zealand. Pat `Pearly' Gates has achieved a lot in his life and evinces considerable satisfaction in his achievements. He has a reputation as a former Otago rugby player and believes he would have be...en an All Black but for sporting injuries. He runs a successful real-estate agency in a provincial South Island town, of which he is the second-term mayor. Popular, happily married, well established, he cuts an impressive figure, especially in his own eyes. But will his pride and complacency come before a fall?
Read more

Dougie's story and mine is not told in the history of William Larnach. It is our private journey, and only we understand how it came about; only we know the fitness and the wonder of it. William James Mudie Larnach's name resonates in New Zealand history - the politician and self... - made man who built the famous 'castle' on Otago Peninsula. ...
Read more

"Temporarily in Auckland while her husband is undergoing treatment, Sarah enjoys a walk in the coolness of the Symonds Street Cemetery. As she pauses at the grave of Emily Keeling, murdered in 1886 by a rejected suitor, a stranger named Hartley strikes up a conversation. Before l...ong he arranges to meet Sarah for coffee. So their friendship begins, and soon blossoms into an affair, rich in mutual understanding and sexual excitement. But love may become obsession, which brings with it disquieting demands, even menace"--Publisher information.
Read more