Contemporary concerns

Press, 27 November 1982, Page 16

Contemporary concerns

After the Revolution, and Other Stories. By Michael Gifkins. Longman Paul, 1982, 133 pp. $9.95 (paperback).

(Reviewed by

Owen Marshall)

Michael Gifkins's stories have appeared in New Zealand literary periodicals including “Islands" and “Landfall." and readers have now the opportunity to judge a body of his work. Gifkins is a comparatively young author, and his writing has vigour and a concern with the contemporary. Several of the stories deal with the questing, mobile, lifestyle of young adults, and he catches well the somewhat uneasy fusion of urban and rural elements in the present New Zealand culture. One of the best stories is “The Visit" which succeeds in

integrating character and an authentic New Zealand setting into a satisfying whole. There are others in the collection which are less successful. Gifkins has rather too many set-piece descriptions which cause the movement of his stories to sag. and there is also a tendency for an obtrusive sociological stance in the treatment of character and action. This second criticism is marked in the story “A Return To The Land." in which the people are too obviously stock types to arouse much concern for them in the reader. This collection, however. • shows that Gifkins is a perceptive observer of our society and that he possesses the language with which to make that observation pertinent.