Hush

In eleven stories, Anna Scaife describes the sudden fear, the macabre, the middle-age feminist rage, and the unexpected tragedies which befall everyday New Zealanders.

We turned and sprinted until our lungs stung in our chests. I kept my eyes on the road. I tasted acid, like the candied ginger Nan served at Christmas that burned your throat. If she knew we were out there with a knife getting mixed up with the Mitchells, she’d have killed us.

Scaife’s deceptively effortless style and keen observation combine humour with a fine intelligence, making this fiction a joy to read.

Pammy was the youngest of the [knitting] club members at sixty-eight. She dyed her shoulder-length hair blonde, and her cheeks were crosshatched with deep creases from years of smoking. ‘She’s a climber,’ Helen said, ‘It’ll come in handy.’