A Beautiful Family

Written from the perspective of a 10-year-old New Zealand girl in the early 1980s, this is the story of one family holiday where the seams of their ordinary lives are slowly and relentlessly unravelled around them. Our young narrator, whose name you only learn right near the heart-pounding finale, and her family travel from Wellington to a sleepy coastal town for the summer holidays. Usually, her mother wants to escape to an isolated location, but this year she wants to be where there are people.

The narrator’s older sister, Vanessa, is bored and when she discovers a friend from school in the holiday town, she begins experimenting with shoplifting, drinking and boys. The creepy older man from next door spends an inordinate amount of time on his deck watching their backyard, and her mum is secretively writing and wandering off on walks all the time. The narrator and her new friend Kahu decide to investigate the disappearance of a girl who went missing a few years earlier, presumed drowned. This is a time before mobile phones, when people can disappear for hours, and the narrator’s most cherished possession is her cherry-red Walkman, which plays her only tape on repeat – True Colours by Split Enz. Some characters also display racist attitudes towards diverse characters within the narrative, which appear jarring from our current perspective.

Beautifully, languorously written, this is a novel to savour like a long summer’s day at the beach. As the author slowly heightens the levels of menace, the reader fills in the gaps left by our innocent narrator to discover that not only is this family deeply unhappy, but it is also at significant risk. This debut novel by New Zealand author Jennifer Trevelyan will captivate literary fiction readers, while also providing plenty of enjoyment for lovers of thriller and mystery writing.