A novel about telling stories in a time of change.
What is the point of inventing stories when reality eclipses imagination?
A little way off in the future, during a time of plague and profound social collapse, a group of friends escapes to a house in the country where they entertain themselves by playing music, eating, drinking and telling stories about their lives. There are tales of thieves and pirates, deaths and a surprise birth, a freak wave and many other stories of misadventure resulting in unexpected felicity.
The Deck borrows the motifs of Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th-century masterpiece, The Decameron, in which another small group gathered to avoid contagion and passed the time telling stories. But what is the role of fiction, this novel asks, as civilisation falters?
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Imprint: Vintage New Zealand
Publication date: 18/04/2023
The Deck
by Fiona Farrell
Review by Jo
The Deck is an intriguing hybrid of fiction and nonfiction with a uniquely Kiwi perspective that I couldn’t put down. Farrell brings together a gorgeously diverse group of old friends in their later years, who tell stories from pivotal moments in their lives. Riddled with relatable and compassionately rendered imperfections, they are a joy to spend time with as their stories within stories, within stories unfold. There are confessions, reckonings, rekindlings and new beginnings. Farrell’s work has everything you want – lyrical language, fresh wit, playful sensuality, suspense, and an uncanny ability to get to the nub of things. This brilliant new book is much more than a pandemic novel. Farrell tussles with ideas about how to live in a world approaching its final act, and questions the role fiction can play in such a time. Her conclusions are profound and hopeful, and make this a provocative but deeply satisfying read. This reflective novel is a delicious autumn read as we wind down into a slower, more thoughtful time of year.
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