The Burning River

Lawrence Patchett

Victoria University Press

Otago Daily Times, December 7th 2019

In recent years, New Zealand has begun to recognise and celebrate its many talented authors, both literary and crime fiction. With the odd exception, however, most local science fiction and fantasy writers are better known overseas than here. Whether this is due to a paucity of publishers or intellectual snobbery is a moot point, but examples such as Lawrence Patchett’s debut novel, The Burning River, andChris Else’s Waterline (reviewed separately) prove our speculative fiction is as good as any around the world.

In The Burning River, Patchett conjures a vision of a distant future in which society has reverted to pre-European times. The novel is set on a southern coastline where three settlements maintain an uneasy peace. Lowest in the pecking order are the Raupo, whose health and fertility are slowly but surely being sapped by the stagnant waters and disease-carrying insects surrounding them. On the bluffs above are the Whaea, a matriarchal tribe whose regenerated forests and clean water are sequestered by a formidable fence. At the same time, a third group controls the intervening plateau and the stream of refugees fleeing troubles further North. But this fragile equilibrium has been unsettled by the arrival of a new group, the Burners, whose fires cast a permanent pall across their island camp, and there are rumours of even more fearsome tribes following in their wake. 

The story’s central character, a plastic miner called Van, is the whāngai son of the Raupo’s headwoman, Matewai. As a Pākehā of unknown parentage, he is acutely aware of his outsider status, and when a young Tamāhine Toa, Rua, arrives with an urgent summons from the Whaea, he is at a loss to understand what they want of him. At first, he assumes he has made her mother, Hana (with whom he shared a bed at the recent Summer festival) sick. But Rua says the elders wish to teach him his whakapapa, and he eventually agrees to accompany her home, where he is delighted to find Hana not only well but pregnant with his child. It soon becomes clear that their liaison was far from accidental, however; the Burners are coming for the Whaea’s land, and the elders want Van to negotiate with his natal whānau for permission to resettle in their rohe, a mission that will force him to re-evaluate his own identity and place in the world completely.

One of the most striking aspects of The Burning River is the way it plunges the reader into a fully formed world that is given – and requires –no explanation. It is also unapologetically Aotearoan. Everything from the flora and fauna to the echoes of our pre and peri-colonial past are instantly recognisable. Māori words and phrases are scattered throughout the text, some of which are translated (usually for Van’s benefit, whose less-than-perfect understanding of reo and tikanga feeds his sense of inferiority), others not. However, familiarity with this country’s landscape and history is not a prerequisite for fully immersion in Patchett’s vision. Van’s struggle to find his place as husband, father, and leader is central to human experience. The overall effect is both intimate and universal, the reader’s experience reflecting Van’s own as he navigates through an unfamiliar culture, redefining himself in the context of old and new relationships.

Despite its dystopian setting, The Burning River is as much about adaptation, regeneration and resilience as conflict and loss. The nature and complexity of family, inter and intra-community relationships form a central theme of the novel, and the most emotionally satisfying moments involve the slowly strengthening bonds between Van, Hana and Rua.

The fact that such a first-class novel can find a market here gives me hope that Kwi-Fi will soon stand alongside Yeah-Noir as a home-grown genre we will be proud to call our own.