Orphanage Boys AN Arthur 9780994138217 Books
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Two young boys are sent to Stoke Orphanage while their father seeks work on the west coast of New Zealand. They endure the brutality and sadness for several years before both find new lives. An insight into New Zealand history
Orphanage Boys AN Arthur 9780994138217 Books
An excellent example of how New Zealand History, limited though it is, can be approachable. With distinct, well crafted characters placed in familiar settings, Orphanage Boys envelopes the reader and pulls them effortlessly into the historical backdrop of the late 1800s. A well researched and masterfully crafted debut novel, I look forward to seeing more by the author in the coming years.Product details
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Tags : Orphanage Boys [A.N. Arthur] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Two young boys are sent to Stoke Orphanage while their father seeks work on the west coast of New Zealand. They endure the brutality and sadness for several years before both find new lives. An insight into New Zealand history,A.N. Arthur,Orphanage Boys,Rangitawa Publishing,0994138210,FICTION Historical General,Fiction Historical
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Orphanage Boys AN Arthur 9780994138217 Books Reviews
This book helps to fill the very large gap in the genre of New Zealand historical fiction...and it does so with heart and compassion. You feel as though the writer knew these boys. As a New Zealander I learnt a lot about 'home' that I had so far failed to register, partly to a strong lack of engagement with non-fictional treatises on the subject. I hope this is widely read by my fellow country folk as we need to know our past (we are rather poor connoisseurs of our own history) and I most sincerely hope that this author publishes more fiction on NZ's interesting history, in this charming and very accessible style.
It's a bit difficult to describe the plot of this using the three available options as this book is full of strong characters with some amusing banter amidst the darkness of the subject matter. It's not what I'd call 'literary' fiction but then, I prefer great story substance over arty style in my reading choices. The author's notes made it clear she was writing fiction using historical facts as the base of the story and I found the settings and characters very believable. I don't know much, if anything, about Nz history so the violence of the strike and the treatment of children in orphanages was surprising and shocking to me. The strongest features for me were the relationships between the characters, the children, and the adults and I could see a further book following these characters, perhaps?
Before reading this book, I was not a aware of the mistreatment some orphans have suffered in New Zealand. Regrettably, in such cases, there seems nothing new under the sun. Thankfully, however, what also remains true is the presence of good, people who bring kindness and compassion to the most vulnerable. It is very much here in this story. We also see the emotional and behavioural complexities of abused boys, the struggles of a father trying to find his way, and the strength and triumph of brotherly love.
“Orphanage Boys” by A.N. Arthur A review by Darryl Ware
New Zealand history is not all that well understood by those of us who were schooled in the 20th century. We know this when we see quiz shows on TV, hear them on radio, or take part in a pub quiz. The NZ history questions are usually the ones participants struggle with. That doesn’t mean we’re not interested in our history, we just never learned it beyond dates and places concerning early explorers. Blame the education curriculum of the time. But there are ways of imparting history that guarantees sustainability of interest. “Orphanage Boys” does this, and does it well. The author has chosen to focus on a social history by telling the story of a settler family and how it fared at a time when our social and political directions were being forged in the early years of the 20th century.
But when social history is embarked on, it doesn’t have a ‘safety barrier’ of remoteness, as official political history does. Social history is right down here with us, with our families, and the strengths and failures – and scandals – that beset us. So this book uncovers a few skeletons in cupboards.
When the Brodie family of Nelson is broken by a family tragedy, the two boys are placed in the Stoke Orphanage, not because they are orphans. They are not. It is “just until Father can get back on his feet again”. But the Stoke Orphanage was run by the Marist Brothers. And, as we all now know, those threats we used to get when we were bad boys, that “I’ll put you in a boy’s home” had a menace beyond that casual irritated threat of a parent whose patience has been taxed to the limit.
In “Orphanage Boys”, which is a novel, not a non-fiction, there are certain unpleasant facts illustrated. Those of us who endured boys’ boarding schools well know these facts already, and the methods of behavioural modification undertaken by the Marist Brothers and other ‘well-meaning’ institutions are still being expensively wrangled over in our courts, in a quest for what is called justice. The Brodie boys’ reactions to the awful privations visited upon them in the orphanage later drive them apart from each other, despite their earlier childhood co-dependent protectiveness.
The story takes place in Nelson and its hinterland, ranges down to the West Coast, and later Wellington just before the First World War, when the political Left was just beginning to get organised in its perennial grappling with the Right. So we get taken into that struggle which culminates in the Great Strike confrontations that put “Massey’s Cossacks” in the streets and wharves of Wellington and Auckland, where farm boys on horses were backed up by the military – and machine guns – to face the strikers, branded as ‘traitors and cowards’, who, less than a year later, were called on to serve and die for their country, and that far-off place called “Home”.
This novel has pathos, bitterness, warmth, violence, tenderness, success, and failure, all packaged in the trajectory of the times it deals with, tracing the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the strongly-drawn characters, but focussing on how the two Brodie boys deal with the circumstances put upon them. It’s obvious that the author has some considerable experience and talent at dialogue, because that is the weft that keeps the fabric of this tale together, despite the odd typo or punctuation gremlin.
So, “Orphanage Boys” can join the library of distinguished, well-researched books dealing with who we are and how we got here in New Zealand – and also serve as a caution that such upheavals as depicted are never ‘over’, and that what we see on the foreign TV news can, and likely will, happen here. Because we never learn. Even as we learn, we never learn.
An excellent example of how New Zealand History, limited though it is, can be approachable. With distinct, well crafted characters placed in familiar settings, Orphanage Boys envelopes the reader and pulls them effortlessly into the historical backdrop of the late 1800s. A well researched and masterfully crafted debut novel, I look forward to seeing more by the author in the coming years.
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