Thea lives under a mountain – one that’s ready to blow.
A vet at a mid-sized rural practice has been called back during maternity leave and is coping – just – with the juggle of meetings, mealtimes, farm visits, her boss’s search for legal loopholes and the constant care of her much-loved children, Eli and Lucy.
But something is shifting in Thea – something is burning. Or is it that she is becoming aware, for the first time, of the bright, hot core at her centre?
Then comes an urgent call.
Ingeniously layered, Ash is a story about reckoning with one’s rage and finding marvels in the midst of chaos.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Imprint: Te Herenga Waka University Press
Publication date: 11/04/2024
Ash
By Louise Wallace
Review by Bel
Female rage is as old as our species, and yet in this elegant experimental novel, Louise Wallace manages to find a new way of communicating it. She playfully captures the particular madness of being the primary carer of small children, alongside the frustration and bone-weariness of being generally undermined, undervalued and underpaid, even now. I made the mistake of reading this at the hairdressers, where I then ranted like a lunatic, but was understood nevertheless. There was much nodding. Wallace's ingenious use of metaphor is poetic and powerful, as is the roar and the restraint in these pages. This book made me laugh in recognition, nash my teeth, and when I finished it I let out a very long, controlled breath, right to the end. For fans of Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch and Miranda Darling's Thunderhead.
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