Best known for her romantic novels as Daphne Clair and Laurey Bright, here Daphne de Jong presents real stories about real New Zealanders dealing with real life - the ordinary bloke coming
face to face with murder, the woman whose quiet tragedy is hardly noticed in the backwater town where she spends her life, the young urban Polynesians whose act of compassion has a bizarre outcome...
FICTION
Published 1998
by David Ling, Auckland, NZ
ISBN:1-85487-884-0
Excerpt from the title story:
Ships used to founder on it in the old days, a century and more ago. You can see the waves breaking at the harbour entrance, although the bar itself is invisible. When the ships broke up the tribes nearby had a right to whatever was washed ashore, including tasty crewmen. The Europeans didn't always appreciate Maori custom, so there were some fairly violent misunderstandings. Nowadays we're more culturally sensitive, supposed to be, anyway. And both sides are less likely to pull out a gun to settle the argument. Usually, at least.
So when somebody did, it was a bit of shock to us all. I mean, here we were minding our own business in our own local, and then there's a man standing in the doorway with a gun, a hunting rifle, waving it about and shouting.
It took a minute for the noise that's the usual noise, the burble and hum and happy shouts of a Friday night in the pub to stop as people realized what was happening and turned round to look at this bloke with the gun and the loud voice. I don't think anybody ducked under a table, which might have been the sensible thing to do. We all just stood there, or sat, right where we were, and the bloke stopped shouting and swung the gun and pulled the trigger, and this Maori guy standing with his back to the bar right next to me gave a little grunt and jerked back against the wooden counter and then bent forward and knelt and finally lay down with his face to the floor.
Daphne de Jong writes from the heart of ordinary things, turning them inside out to present them with a fresh perspective. Her words move between clay and spirit and remind us that both are beautifully at home in us.
- Joy Cowley
A distinctive voice of compassion and integrity...compelling and disconcerting, full of insights but also unnervingly familiar.
- Sue McCauley
Reviews
It requires a special art to write short stories successfully...Daphne de Jong demonstrates this art to perfection...
...A superb collection that will have wide appeal.
...A treasured possession to be picked up and re-read again and again.
- Pauline Guy, Northern Advocate
It is difficult to remember when I last read a book of short stories as satisfying...an absorbing and uplifting collection which might well appeal to even those who profess not to like short stories.
- Ross Lay, Sunday Star Times
Her simple and compassionate prose is marked by Kiwi openness and psychological scrutiny...what George Eliot called the "right elements" - genuine observation, humour and passion.
- Joy McKenzie, NZ Listener
...Adroit handling of power and tenderness across three generations and two continents...sharp without being savage...moments when the everyday becomes numinous...clear, convincing glimpses of the ordinary lives that literature is made from.
- David Hill, Weekend Herald
The stories are irresistible, sometimes charming, occasionally disturbing and even bizarre as they unravel before the reader. But most of all, they leave an extraordinary feeling of enlightenment and privilege to have read them.
- Sarah Burrage, NZ Writers' Web site.
Sales information: inquire here. 
