Sandspit Crossing - Hardcover

Virtue, Noel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0720609062 ISBN 13: 9780720609066

Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers, 1994

Synopsis

Set in an isolated, jerry-built town in North Island, New Zealand "only a smudge of fly dirt on the map" this novel seethes with mayhem and skuldugger. A story of smouldering relationships and murder among the bizarre inhabitants of a declining New Zealand township.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This new novel by Noel Virtue is set in an isolated township of jerry-built houses in North Island, New Zealand - 'only a smudge of fly dirt on the map'. In true black-comedy fashion, it seethes with mayhem and skulduggery. When Norrie and Kezia leave Sandspit Crossing to seek their fortune, young Athol Buck moves in with Magdalen Maidstone, a spinster librarian who rides a motor cycle, wears her hair in a bun and sports a moustache. Her rejection of the amorous advances made by Mr. Ritter the butcher has dramatic consequences, thwarting her mission to 'Save Sandspit'. It is the evangelist Reverend Enoch Fulk, whose fervour dripped from his tongue 'like melted lard', who tries ultimately to build, literally, on the township's demise. But he is not to outwit the resourceful Miss Maidstone and her plucky protege, Athol. Once again Noel Virtue has created a unique ambience in which to portray his wonderfully bizarre characters. He does so with gusto, humour and a captivating mesh of his native vernacular.

From Kirkus Reviews

The black is there, but the comedy comes and goes in this novel about quirky Sandspit Crossing--a sort of dusty, down-under Winesburg, New Zealand--by the author of Then Upon the Evil Season (not reviewed). Athol Buck's parents are among the first longtime residents to flee the town's sagging economy and seek fortune elsewhere. Athol remains with his neighbor and best mate Magdalen Maidstone, the bun-coiffed, Harley-riding spinster who runs the town library and would like to run Sandspit Crossing. The only person of culture and vision amid a sea of philistines, Miss Maidstone (as she's called) is like a benign Miss Jean Brodie; with lone prot‚g‚ Athol, she launches grand, eccentric schemes designed to jump-start the town. But she's working with a bunch of loopy no-hopers: Mr. Ritter, the butcher, carves sausage phalluses to mark his love for the unattainable librarian before going berserk; Mrs. Mills is strangled with her husband's pajama string while he is found bound and gagged with his underpants; Beryl's a drunk and an adulteress; Charlie's a drunk and a madman; and the radical feminists are tea- partying old hens. Maidstone panhandles, writes letters to corporations, rolls in mud to rescue landmarks, and slings cow patties at members of Parliament--anything to keep dust and disinterest from burying her beloved hometown. Then Athol's parents, who've become Hollywood hotshots, send for him and Maidstone: Will they go? The conclusion, which answers this question, is as zany, tidy, and improbable as the ending of a Scooby Doo episode. Some of the Kiwi-speak is as difficult to read as ``shoving a pound of butter up your bottom with a knitting- needle,'' but it's the genuine, randy article. Gritty rural realities, wacky humor, and madcap antics--an odd mix, but it works...intermittently. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0720609062
• ISBN 13: 9780720609066
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182