There are many messages in this book: Never go drinking using your passport for ID. Make sure to apply lidocaine before ripping out your toenails. Magic might be real, but it never fixes the worst of your problems. Try to fall in love with bastards. You or someone you know may be gayer than previously thought. We’re not going to make it to Mars. A locked psychiatric ward needs more books than a single copy of Jane Eyre. Asking time travellers for advice on your exams is considered cheating.
It’s not just human houses that become haunted. The key message is this: Life in the early 21st century is often very strange. So are these stories.
Victor Rodger writes in the Aotearoa Review of Books, ‘Here is a writer with a voice that is as distinctive as it is confident; who both recognises and leans into the absurdity of life, but is equally adept at embracing its beauty and its sometimes aching sadness.’
Sam Finnemore writes in Kete, ‘The layers of reference and allusion throughout the collection are unpacked, just precisely far enough, in two sets of endnotes that by the time you get to them almost read like stories themselves. With each new twist consciously reshaping what’s come before, this is a genuinely kaleidoscopic collection – walking multiple fine lines of genre, tone and perspective with a captivating intelligence and energy.’
