I do not often buy books by New Zealand writers. This irresponsibility is probably due to misplaced priorities and lack of time. But when I was in the bookshop recently, I made a decision to find and buy a new New Zealand novel, walking away with “Settlers’ Creek” by Carl Nixon, a ‘young’ contemporary writer who has received high praise from Owen Marshal and others.
“Settlers’ Creek” is the subject of this book report. I should warn you straightaway that this is not a book review; I shall not coyly avoid talking about what actually happens in the novel. If you want to read “Settlers’ Creek” and be surprised by its major plot development, you should read no further. As with my earlier book reports, I intend to talk about the whole novel and this involves revealing the major plot twist.
The protagonist of “Settlers’ Creek” is Box Saxton, a Pakeha ex-real estate developer put out of the job by the global recession and, at the beginning of the novel, working as a chippy putting up classrooms. He is married and has a daughter as well as a step-son that he loves as if the boy were his own flesh and blood. At the beginning of the novel, the son, Mark, commits suicide and the early part of the novel describes Box’s reaction to this death. Box arranges for Mark to buried at the Saxton family plot in the small sea-side town in which he grew up; before he can be buried however Mark biological father, a Maori called Tipene, (who has changed his name from Peter sometime in the intervening years) shows up. Tipene manages a successful tourism business in the town of Kaipuna. Shortly before Mark can be buried, Tipene and other members of his iwi remove Mark’s body from the mortuary and transport it north from Christchurch to Kaipuna (modelled presumably on Kaikoura) where he can be buried with his whanau. “With no plan and little hope,” Box drives to Kaipuna and then (this is the plot twist that the blurb leaves unrevealed) steals the body from the Marae and journeys back with it to Christchurch to bury the boy where his heart belongs.
As can be seen from this brief synopsis, Settler’s Creek is a novel not only set in New Zealand but also concerned with what it means to be a New Zealander. It attempts (as the blurb says) to explore “the claims both indigenous people and more recent settlers have to a spiritual link to the land.” Its premise is quite topical and could have been picked straight from the newspaper – indeed, it is really an imaginative extrapolation of some events that took place just a couple of years ago. Apparently nobody owns a corpse so when a burial is contested, it must be settled through the courts. To some extent, the story can also be read as allegory. Mark’s body can be understood as a symbol for New Zealand itself: although Box is not linked to Mark through blood, he loves the boy like his own son. Of course, we cannot push the allegorical aspect too far. If we do so, the story would seem to justify Pakeha claims to ownership of New Zealand by implying that Maori abandoned it, and this is something that Nixon cannot intend.
Creative New Zealand’s guiding principle is to support writers who tell ‘our’ stories, and if this is taken as a general prescription for New Zealand writers, Nixon succeeds admirably. The story is full of references to such totemic cultural institutions as the All Blacks, pig-hunting, orchard growing, roadside fish-and-chip shops. Personally, I find the self-conscious kiwi-ness of much New Zealand writing claustrophobic, and I can well understand why a writer like Elizabeth Knox might want to escape a narrow nationalistic literature by setting “The Vinter’s Luck” in France. The narrow definition of New Zealand identity advanced by much New Zealand writing, to my mind, does a disservice to the complexity of real New Zealanders’ experiences.
However, “Settlers’ Creek” does at least avoid one major pitfall of modern New Zealand writing: the trap of excessive political correctness. If anything it goes too far in the opposite direction. At one point, Box has a conversation with a Pakeha crayfish salesman who launches a harangue against upstart Maori: “everyone’s always kissing their brown arses.[…] Fucking treaty settlements–nothing but handouts. Round here they’ve bought up everything. There’s nothing left for ordinary people like us.” In vain does Box argue that his actions are part of nothing bigger, that it is “personal”: we know exactly what Nixon is doing. His story is channelling Pakeha grievance against Maori for their perceived success.
And ‘grievance’ is precisely the right word. At its deepest level, the novel inverts the narrative of Maori loss and restoration, making it a Pakeha story instead. It is Box, not Tipene, who has trauma in his past. It is Box who has lost his parents and elder brother at a young age (the brother’s body, tellingly, was lost at sea) and more recently his successful business. Box is the one with a grievance, the one who lacks control of his own destiny. It is Box who is forced to undertake an act of civil disobedience.
Although I have said that self-consciously New Zealand writing can be claustrophobic, I believe that “Settlers’ Creek” could have been a great New Zealand novel. Studies of New Zealand identity have their place and its premise is great. However, I believe the novel falls short. It is not complex enough, does not fully develop the themes it introduces (such as suicide) and does not do justice to the Maori side of the story. I think (and this is just my opinion) that the novel is one of the great might-have-been’s of New Zealand literature.