The Sawdust Makers

Jackie Fraser

Hazard Press

Otago Daily Times, May 13th 2006

Jackie Fraser’s first novel, The Sawdust Makers, is an earnest tribute to the New Zealand bush and the “honest Kiwi battlers who tamed it”.

I must admit a small bias: I grew up on the West Coast and my principal playground was a sawdust heap from an abandoned milling operation similar to the one at the centre of this novel. This aside, my verdict is that the book is “sincere, thoroughly researched, but the author tries too hard.”

It is 1939 and 18-year-old Sarah has come to New Zealand from Britain to spend her “gap year” with her aunt and uncle at their mill in the heart of the King Country. Both the land and its people are unfamiliar territory, and the months spent buried in the bush with the mill and the men who work it are full of surprises.

Despite the isolated location, Sarah soon forms close friendships with her 19-year-old cousin, James, and Tipene, whose mother has lived and worked with the family for years. Everything is new and strange to her and every day brings a new lesson about the land, its people and the complex relationship between Pakeha and Maori.

Things both within and outside the family are in a state of flux. Internationally, the threat of war is in the air, while closer to home the traditional methods of milling are slowly dying out as technology improves.

Her Uncle Bob refuses to see the coming changes and runs his business the same way his father and grandfather did. As far as he is concerned, the steam engine that powers the saw is the heart of both the mill and the family, and he cannot understand why James (who aspires to be a lawyer) does not want to continue in the family tradition. Throw into the mix rivalry between James and Tipene for Sarah’s affections, and all the elements for an interesting story are there.

Fraser has worked scrupulously to present an historically accurate snapshot of a specific place and time. There are meticulously detailed descriptions of the bush, the mountains, the birds and the day-to-day operation of the mill, and ultimately the actors are dominated by the stage. I’m also not sure who the intended audience is.

Things are presented through Sarah’s eyes as if they are as novel and strange to us as they are to her, but it is territory which will be familiar to many New Zealanders. This might work well for a British market, but at home it is like selling oysters to Bluff.